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A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



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A HISTORY OF 
GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



BY THE HON. MRS. EVELYN CECIL 

(THE HON. ALICIA AMHERST) 

CITIZEN AND GARDENER OF LONDON 
AUTHOR OF "children's GARDENS," "LONDON PARKS AND GARDENS," ETC. 



THIRD AND ENLARGED EDITION 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



" They set gfreat store by their gardeins " 

Sir Thomas Mors 



NEW YORK 
E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 

1910 






IPebuatcb 

TO 

MY FATHER AND MOTHER 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 

A NUMBER of years have already elapsed since the second 
edition of this book appeared, and during that interval 
there has been a very great revival of gardening in England, 
and works on the subject have multiplied with extraordinary 
rapidity. Few volumes, however, have been devoted to the 
early history, and but little has been produced^from the sources 
I endeavoured to open up, and to prepare for further investiga- 
tion. Although details of countless gardens in the kingdom 
have been published, no other attempt has been made to classify 
or arrange them chronologically. No one else has tried to 
review consecutively the changes which have taken place, and 
the fashions which have prevailed, or to follow the process of 
development which has gradually led up to the modern garden, 
and I believe this volume still remains the only work of refer- 
ence on the subject. 

In these circumstances it appears a new edition may be 
welcome. Here and there I have been able to add a few facts 
from original authorities to further illustrate each period, such 
as notes from the MSS. records of Westminster Abbey, from 
those of the Gardeners' Company, or of Humphry Repton at 
a still later date. The most important additions are with 
regard to the work of Le Notre in this country. For some of 
this information I am indebted to the help of friends, particu- 
larly of M. Edouard Andre, Miss Sybil Buxton, and Miss 
Godden. The chapter dealing with the nineteenth century has 
been almost entirely rewritten. Many suggestions of possible 
developments thrown out fifteen years ago have proved pro- 
phetic, and are now facts, and have accordingly been treated 



viii PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 

historically, and a short chapter touching the most modem 
aspects of gardening has been appended. A few new illustra- 
tions have been added, the more important being those of some 
lead statues of historical interest. The bibliography has been 
revised and augmented by several works and editions which 
have come to light. 

It seems necessary to add a few words to explain why I 
describe myself as a " citizen and gardener of London," which 
some reviewers of one of my other books supposed to be a 
fanciful title. I was given the Freedom of the Gardeners' 
Company in 1896, and was duly admitted to the Freedom of 
the City of London, through the Court of Aldermen, an honour 
which for some years I was the only lady to possess, and of 
which I am extremely proud. 

In reprinting the dedication I feel this third edition is a 
tribute to the memory of my father. I should like to record 
that I learnt all my practical knowledge of gardening as a child 
from my mother, who had always been devoted to gardening 
long years before it was considered a fashionable pastime for 
ladies ; and but for the help and encouragement of my father 
and his famous library, now, alas ! dispersed, this book would 
never have been written. Nearly all the rare gardening works 
quoted — Macer, the "Aggregator," " Ortus Sanitatis," the 
works of Turner, Gerard, Parkinson, Tusser, Hill, and countless 
other writers, were my familiar friends from my childhood in 
the " Amherst Library," and many other quaint editions were 
added from time to time as I needed them for my researches. 
I learnt how to read the cramped handwritings and abbrevia- 
tions of the old records I had to consult, by practising on the 
Wyclif, Northewode, Hampole, and other fourteenth-century 
manuscripts, to which I had free access at my home. This 
book is chiefly the result of living with these precious volumes, 
which were collected with great knowledge, and treasured with 
deep appreciation by my father. 

ALICIA M. CECIL. 

10, Eaton Place, 
October, 1909. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 

THE first edition was so quickly sold out that there has 
been a demand for a second before I have had time to 
make many additions. There are, however, a few alterations, 
the chief of them being the insertion of a part of the plans of 
the Monastery of Canterbury from an early manuscript ; the 
correct view of Ingestre, instead of that of Castle Bromwich, 
which was substituted by mistake in the first edition ; and the 
addition of a view of Gunnersbury. 

I must express my thanks to all friends who have kindly 
pointed out misprints overlooked in the first edition, which I 
have endeavoured to rectify. I am also indebted to those who 
have helped me to add the names of a few more books to the 

Bibliography. 

ALICIA M. T. AMHERST. 

July, 1896. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 

KNOWING that I was fond both of practical gardening 
and the study of old garden literature, Mr. Percy 
Newberry suggested to me in the spring of 1891 that I should 
edit some articles he had written on the " History of Gardening 
in England down to the Reign of Elizabeth," which had 
appeared in the Gardener's Chronicle in 1889, and that I should 
carry on the history from that point. I became so much 
interested in the subject, and had collected so much new 
material, that I decided to enlarge on the original plan, and 
not only to continue the history, but to traverse again all 
the earlier part, drawing my information afresh from the 
original authorities. I wish, therefore, to acknowledge my 
indebtedness to Mr. Newberry, who so kindly put his articles 
and notes at my disposal in the first instance. 

This work does not pretend to be a history of the gardens 
of England, which would, indeed, be a delightful task to carry 
out; therefore many well-known gardens have not been 
mentioned in the following pages, only a few examples having 
been cited to serve as illustrations of each successive fashion, 
and to enumerate others would only have been to multiply 
instances. It is hoped rather that this work, inadequate 
though it is in comparison with the vastness of the subject, 
may in some measure serve as a handbook by which to classify 
gardens, and fix the dates to which they belong. In many cases 
it must always be difficult to assign an exact date to a garden, 
as, although frequently a garden adjoining the house has existed 
from very eajrly times, the changes, though few, have been so 



xii PREFACE 

gradual that it is almost impossible to determine for certain 
the time at which they assumed their present condition. I 
have to thank the many friends who have very kindly afforded 
me information respecting their gardens, and provided me with 
plans or photographs, or who have given me ready access to 
the manuscripts in their possession in public or private 
collections. 

I also wish gratefully to acknowledge the kindness of 
Mr. J. G. Baker, F.R.S., in looking over the following pages 
whilst still in proof-sheets. The correction of the proofs had 
been rendered an easy task for me by the kind co-operation 
of my friend, Miss Margaret MacArthur. My thanks are 
also due to Professor Skeat and Mr. James Britten for their 
help in the identification of some of the plants mentioned in 
the fifteenth-century manuscripts, and to Mr. R. E. G. Kirk, 
who assisted me in deciphering some of the earlier Latin ones ; 
also to Mr. Michael Kemey for revising my bibliography of 
printed books on Gardening to the end of the seventeenth 
century. I regret that the continuation from the year 1699 
has not received as much time and attention as I wished to 
bestow upon it, as I have had to complete it rather hurriedly 
on account of my having been absent abroad for several months. 



ALICIA M. T. AMHERST. 



DiDLiNGTON Hall, 
Norfolk, 

September, 1895. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER FAl^B. 

I. MONASTIC GARDENING ----- I 

II. THIRTEENTH CENTURY - - - - -3° 

III. FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES - - "41 

IV. EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE - - - "5^ 
V. EARLY TUDOR GARDENS - - - - - 69 

VI. THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN - - "94 

VII. KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER ELIZABETH AND JAMES I. - II 6 

VIII. ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE - - "144 

IX. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY - - - - -15^ 

X. GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY - - - 20I 

XI. DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING - - - - 221 

XII. LANDSCAPE GARDENING ... - - 243 

XIII. NINETEENTH CENTURY . - - - - 266 

XIV. MODERN GARDENING ... - - 306 



APPENDIX 

SURVEYS OF WIMBLEDON AND THEOBALDS, 1649 - - 317 

LIST OF ENGLISH PRINTED BOOKS ON GARDENING CHRONO- 
LOGICALLY ARRANGED DOWN TO THE YEAR 1 837 - 332 
NAMES OF THE AUTHORS OF WORKS ON GARDENING 

ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY - - - - 378 

INDEX -.---.. 384 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



TO FACE PAGE 

ORCHARD AND VINEYARD OF THE MONASTERY OF CANTERBURY 8 

From MS. c. ii6_s, in Trinity College, Cambridge. 

PART OF THE PLAN OF THE MONASTERY OF CANTERBURY - 8 

From MS. c. ii6_s, in Trinity College, Cambridge. 

VINE PRUNERS - - - - - - - 82 

From an Anglo-Saxon MS.^ eleventh century. [B. M. Cotton Tiberins^ 
B.J.) 

ASHRIDGE, SHOWING PART OF THE OLD CLOISTER WALL - 28 

GARDEN IN A TOWN - - - - - * S^ 

From French MS., late fifteenth century. {B. M. add. ig,y20.) 

ARBOUR -.-.-..- 48 

From "Roman de la Rose," Flemish MS., late fifteenth century. 
(B. M. Harl., 4,433.) 

TURFED SEAT IN A GARDEN WALL - - - "SO 

From ^^ Roman de la Rose," Flemish MS., late fifteenth century. 
{B. M. Harl., 4,425.) 

FOUNTAIN- ----..- 52 

From an English MS., •' Speculum," c. 1450. {B. M., 2,838.) 

GARDEN .--...-. g6 

From "Roman de la Rose," Flemish MS., late fifteenth century. 
(B. M. Harl., 4,423.) 

"THE FEATE OF GARDENING," BY ION GARDENER - - 64 

MS. c. 1440, Trinity College, Cambridge. 

THE MOUNT, ROCKINGHAM - - - - - 70 

OLD YEW WALK AND MOUNT, ROCKINGHAM - - - 70 

From a drawing by Howard Carter. 

GARDEN WITH A GALLERY - - - - - 72 

From " The Second Booke of Flowers, Fruicts, Beastes, Birds, and 
Flies," j6jo. 

XV 



xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

TO FACE PAGE 

TUDOR GARDEN HOUSE, LOSELEY - - - - "74 

From a drawing by Howard Carter. 

RAILED FLOWER-BED - - - - - - 76 

From French MS. of the " Rofuan de la Rose, ' ' c. 14S0. {B. M, Egerton, 
2,022.) 

PART OF A PICTURE AT HAMPTON COURT SHOWING THE RAILED 

BEDS AND BEASTS - - - - - -76 

KNOT --..---. ^6 

From the " Gardener's Labyrinth," by Didymous Mountain, 1^77. 

THE EAGLE POND, NEWSTEAD ABBEY - - - -78 

APRICOT-TREES ON OLD GARDEN WALL, LITTLECOTE - - 84 

TOOLS USED IN GRAFTING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY - 84 

MAZE ---..-..q5 

From the " Arte of Gardening," by THOMAS Hill, 1^68. 

GRAFTING ---.--. 96 
From the " Arte of Gardening," by LEONARD Mascall, ijga. 

CORNER OF A WALLED GARDEN - - - - - 96 

From " Gardener's Labyrinth," 1^77. 

PLEACHED ALLEY AT DRAYTON - - - - - ICO 

BOSCOBEL IN 1660 -.--.. 102 

BOSCOBEL AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY - - I02 

EXAMPLE OF TOPIARY WORK IN COTTAGE GARDEN, H ADDON - 1 06 
From a drawing by Lady William Cecil. 

ELIZABETHAN TOPIARY WORK, HESLINGTON - - - 106 

CHARTER OF THE GARDENER's COMPANY- - - - I18 

CASTLE BROMWICH - - - - - - 1 26 

From Dugdale's " Antiquities of Warwickshire" 1730. 

CASTLE BROMWICH AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 1 26 

ORANGE COURT AT BURGHLEY HOUSE - - - " T38 

From a picture in the possession of the Marquess of Exeter. 

l'obel .---..-. 146 

From an engraving in the Tyssen Library, Hackney. 

GERARD - - - - - - - - 150 

From the title-page of his " Herbal" 1^97' 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvii 

TO FACE PAGE 

PARKINSON - - - - - - - 150 

From the title-page of his " Paradisus," 1629, 

GARDEN GATES, BULWICK, ERECTED ABOUT 1 674 - - 162 

SUNDIAL, EUSTON, WITH THE ARLINGTON ARMS, ABOUT 1671 - 164 
Drawn from a photograph by Miss Ethel FitzRoy. 

GARDEN AND MOAT, HUNSTANTON, LAID OUT ABOUT 163O - 1 64 

From a drawing by HoN. Margaret Amherst. 

ORANGERIE AT CHISWICK - - - - - - 1 76 

From an engraving by ROCQUE, 1736. 

ORANGERIE AND CANAL, EUSTON- - - - - 176 

From a sketch by Edmond Prideaux, c. 1716. In the possession of 
Charles Glynn Prideaux Brune, Esq. 

LEVENS, PART OF THE GARDEN LAID OUT ABOUT 1 689 - - I90 

From a picture by Geo. S. Elgood. 

NETHERTON - - - - - - -I 96 

From a sketch by Edmond Prideaux, 7727. 

LEAD STATUE AT GLEMHAM. ON THE SUNDIAL THE ARMS 

OF ELIHU YALE (1641-1721) - - - . - 196 

\ 
PARTERRE (No. VI.) ..-.-. 204 

From " The Retired Gardener,^' by London and Wise. 

PARTERRE (No. VII.) ..---- 204 

From " The Retired Gardener,'' by LONDON AND Wise. 

PLAN OF CANONS ASHBY, LAID OUT IN 1708 . - - 206 

Drawn by SiR Henry Dryden. 

PHYSIC GARDEN, CHELSEA (iN 1 894) - - - - 2l6 

LEAD STATUES AT GLEMHAM : MARLBOROUGH AND PRINCE EUGENE 2x8 

"INGESTRE, THE SEAT OF LORD VISCOUNT CHETWYND " - - 222 

From Plot's " Staffordshire," First Edition, 1686. 

" CASHIOBURY, THE SEAT OF THE RT. HONBLE. THE EARLE OF 

ESSEX IN HARTFORDSHIRE " ... - - 222 

From an engravitig by KiP. 

BRAMHAM, LAID OUT IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE - - 224 

From a drawing by Vernet Carter. 

HALL BARN, LAID OUT IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE I. - - 226 

From a drawing by Vbrnet Carter. 



xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

TO FACE PAGE 

BELTON IN LINCOLNSHIRE - - - - - 228 

From an engraving by Badeslad. 

PALLADIAN BRIDGE AT STOW - - - - . 232 

TITLE-PAGE OF CATALOGUE OF THE SOCIETY OF GARDENERS, 1730 236 

GUNNERSBURY PARK : A TEMPLE IN THE GARDEN, DESIGNED BY 

KENT ---.-.-. 248 

CASTLE ASHBY, DESIGNED BY BROWN .... 248 

ROCHE ABBEY - ...... 254 

From a drawing by Hon. Margaret Amherst. 

BURGHLEY : THE TEMPLE DESIGNED BY BROWN - - - 254 

From a drawing by HoN. Margaret Amherst. 

WOODFORD (No. l), FROM A DRAWING BY H. REPTON j (No. 2), 
FROM THE SAME DRAWING, SHOWING THE SUGGESTED IMPROVE- 
MENTS -.-----. 258 

NARFORD ...---.. 262 

From a sketch by Edmund Prideaux about 1731. 

NARFORD .-----... 262 

Photographed from as nearly as possible the same spot in i8g4. 

ARLEY, LAID OUT ABOUT 1 845 IN THE OLD FORMAL STYLE - 278 

SHRUBLANDS, LAID OUT ABOUT 1830 IN THE ITALIAN STYLE - 278 

HAREWOOD, AN EARLY VICTORIAN ITALIAN GARDEN - • 296 

LILIES IN WILD GARDEN ; MISS JEKYLL's GARDEN, MUNSTEAD, 

GODALMING ....... 300 

TREE FERNS (" DICKSONIA ANTARCTICA") AT BOSAHAN, I908 - 304 
From a photograph by SiR Arthur Pendarves Vivian, K.C.B. 

NARCISSUS IN THE SCILLY ISLES . - - - - 304 

From a photograph by GiBSON, Penzance. 

ROCK-GARDEN, BATSFORD - . . . - . 308 



A HISTORY OF 
GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



CHAPTER I 

MONASTIC GARDENING 

" Forsitan, et pingues hortos quae cura colendi 
Ornaret, canerem, ..." 

Virgil: Geor., iv. ii8. 

THE history of the Gardens of England follows step by 
step the history of the people. In times of peace and 
plenty they increased and flourished, and during years of war 
and disturbance they suffered. The various races that have 
predominated and rulers that have governed this country 
influenced the gardens in a marked degree. Therefore, in 
tracing their history, the people whose national characteristics 
or whose foreign alhances left a stamp upon the gardens they 
made must not be lost sight of. 

Nothing worthy of the name of a garden existed in Britain 
before the Roman Conquest. The Britons revered the oak, 
and held the mistletoe sacred, and stained their bodies with 
woad,^ but of any efforts they may have made for the cultiva- 
tion of these or any other plants nothing is known. The history 
of Horticulture in this coimtry cannot fairly be said to begin 
before the coming of the Romans. In this, as in other sciences, 
the Romans were so far advanced that it was centuries 
before they were surpassed, or even equalled, by any other 
nation. 

They cultivated most of the vegetables with which we are 
still famihar. At Rome, said Pliny the Elder, " the garden 
^ Mr. Baker points out that woad is not wild in Britain. 

I 



2 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

constituted of itself the poor man's field, and it was from the 
garden that the lower classes procured their daily food." The 
rich indulged in luxury and extravagance in the garden, and 
vegetables and fruits were raised at great cost for their use, 
which were not enjoyed by the community at large. But most 
of the vegetables which are still in general use were common 
to all classes, and many of these plants were brought by 
the Romans to this country. Some of them took so kindly 
to this soil, and were so firmly established, that they sur- 
vived the downfall of the Roman civilization. A curious 
example of this is one species of stinging-nettle, which tradition 
says was introduced by the Romans as an esteemed pot- 
herb. 

Tacitus, writing in the first century, says that the climate of 
Britain was suitable for the cultivation of all vegetables and 
fruits, except the olive and the vine. Before long, even the 
vine was grown, apparently with some success. It is generally 
believed that the Emperor Probus, about the year 280 a.d., 
encouraged the planting of vineyards in Britain. Phny states 
that the cherry was brought here before the middle of the first 
century. Perhaps he alludes to some improved variety, as 
that fruit is indigenous in this country. 

It cannot be supposed that the Roman gardens in Britain 
were as fine as those on the Continent. Gardens on such an 
elaborate scale as that at PHny's Villa, or at the Imperial Villas 
near Rome, with their terraces, fountains, and statues, could 
scarcely have been made in this country. But the remains of 
Roman houses and villas which have been found in various 
places in JEngland so closely resemble those found in other 
parts of the Empire, that doubtless the gardens belonging to 
them were laid out as nearly as possible on the same lines as 
those of Italy and Gaul. The South of England could afford 
many a sheltered spot, where figs and mulberries, box and rose- 
mary, would grow as well as at " Villa Laurentina," seventeen 
miles from Rome. A " terrace fragrant with the scent of 
violets," traihng vines and ivy ; or enclosures of quaintly-cut 
trees in the forms of animals or letters filled with roses, would 
not there seem out of place. If the Roman gardens in Britain 
were like this — and why should it be doubted when such noble 



MONASTIC GARDENING 3 

remains of villas, mosaic pavements, baths, roads, and bridges 
have been left by that nation ? — it was fully a thousand years 
before anything as beautiful was again seen in our Island. 

The fall of the Roman Empire, and the subsequent invasions 
of barbarians, struck a death-blow to gardening as well as to all 
other peaceful arts. During the stormy years which succeeded 
the Roman rule in Britain, nearly all knowledge of horticulture 
must have died out. Only such plants as were thoroughly 
naturalized and acclimatized would be strong enough to con- 
tinue to grow when not properly cultivated. 

The few Saxon names of plants which can be traced to the 
Latin seem to identify these hardy survivors, or at any rate 
show that the Anglo-Saxons were well acquainted with many 
of the Roman plant-names. The following list, given by Mr. 
Earle in English Plant Names, clearly shows their Latin origin : 



Latin. 


Anglo-Saxon. 


English. 


Amigdala 
Beta 


Magdula treow 
Bete 


Almond 
Beet 


Buxus 


Box 


Box 


Cannabis 
Caulis 


Haenep 
Caul 


Hemp 
Kale 


Coliandrum 


Celendre 


Coriander 


Choerophyllum 
Castanea 


Cerfille 
Cisten beam^ 


Chervil 
Chestnut 


Cornus 


Corn treow 


Cornel 


Crotalum 


Hratele 


Yellow rattle 


Cuminum 


Cymen 


Cummin 


Cerasus 

Febrifugia 

Ficus 


Ciris beam^ 
Feferfuge 
Fie beam^ 


Cherry 

Feverfew 

Fig 


Feniculum 


Finul 


Fennel 


Gladiolum 


Glasdene 


Gladden 


Lactuca 


Lactuce 


Lettuce 


Laurus 


Laur beam^ 


Laurel 


Linum 


Lin saed 


Linseed 


Lihum 
Lubestica 


Lilige 
Lufestice 


Lily 
Lovage 


Malva 


Mealwe 


Mallow 


Morus 
Mentha 


Mor beam* 
Minte 


Mulberry 
Mint 



Beam = the living tree, as Ger. " Baum. 



I — 2 



A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Latin. 


Anglo-Saxon. 


English. 


Napus 


Naep 


Tuv-ni-p 


Papaver 


Popig 


Poppy 


Persica 


Persoc treow 


Peach 


Petroselinum 


Petersilie 


Parsley- 


Pirus 


Pirige 


Pear 


Porrum 


Por leac 


Leek 


Prunus 


Plum treow 


Plum 


Radix 


Raedic 


Radish 


Rosa 


Ro-se 


Rose 


Ruta 


Rude 


Rue 


Sinapi 


Senap 


Mustard 


Unio 


Yul leac 


Onion 


Ulmus 


Ulm treow 


Elm 


Vinea 


Win treow 


Vine 



It may be that some plants, such as the cherry, cabbage, 
lettuce, leek, onion, radish, rose, and parsley, continued in this 
country ; although many species which were in cultivation in 
Britain, in Roman times, had to be reintroduced into England 
at a later date, having been entirely lost during the years of 
Teutonic invasion. On the Continent, the same state of things 
followed the dissolution of the Roman Empire, and horticulture 
only revived with the spread of Christianity and the establish- 
ment of monasteries after a lapse of centuries. 

In this country the revival was due to the same cause, and 
in the early years of England's history undoubtedly the monks 
were better skilled in horticulture than any other class of the 
community. The lines in which their lives were cast tended to 
maintain this superiority. They were left quiet, and, to a great 
extent, undisturbed by wars ; and when other property was 
destroyed and plundered, that of the monks was respected. 
Many of them were men of skill and intelligence, and they 
were able to learn, not only from books, but from their inter- 
course with the Continent, both what plants to grow and how 
to grow them. 

The earliest records of gardens on the Continent (after 
Roman times) date from the ninth century. In the hst of 
Manors of the Abbey of Saint Germain des Pres, Saint Armand 
and Saint Remy, in the time of Karl the Great, mention is 
made of various gardens.^ At other places, as at Corbie, in 

^ Polyptyque de I'Ahhe Irminon, ed. by M. B. Guerard, Paris, 1844. 



MONASTIC GARDENING 5 

Picardy, and at St. Gall, near the lake of Constance, there 
remains more than a mere mention of the existence of a garden. 
At Corbie the garden was very large ; either divided into four, 
or else four distinct gardens, and ploughs, which had to be 
contributed annually by certain tenants, were used to keep it 
in order ; while other tenants had to send men from April to 
October to assist the monks in weeding and planting.^ At 
St. Gall, the " hortus " is a rectangular enclosure, with a central 
path leading from the gardener's house and a shed for tools and 
seeds situated at one end, with nine long and narrow beds of 
equal size on either side. The " herbularis," or physic garden, 
is smaller, with a border of plants all round the wall, and four 
beds on either side of the central walk ; and the plants contained 
in each of these beds are carefully noted." 

In England there is no such exact description of any garden, 
and it is only by carefully examining the records of the various 
monasteries that the existence of gardens or orchards in the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries, and a few of even earlier date, 
can be proved. 

A garden was a most essential adjunct to a monastery, as 
vegetables formed so large a proportion of the daily food of 
the inmates. Therefore, as soon as monasteries were founded, 
gardens must have been made around them, and these were 
probably almost the only gardens worthy of the name in the 
kingdom at that time. Still, the number of plants they con- 
tained was very limited, and probably many of those grown 
on the Continent had not found their way into this country. 
The monks may have received plants from abroad, as some 
connection with religious houses on the Continent was kept 
up ; and in bringing back treasures for their monasteries or 
churches the garden would not be forgotten. But plants 
were chiefly brought for medicine, and were probably imported 
in a dry state, as our word " drug " is simply part of the Anglo- 
Saxon verb " drigan," to dry. 

I Soon after monasteries had been estabhshed in this country, 
missionary monks set forth to convert their Teutonic kinsfolk 
on the Continent. It has been suggested by Mr. Earle that 

* Polyptyque de I' Abbe Irminon, ed. by M. B. Guerard, Paris, 1844. 
' AvchcBological Institute Journal,, vol. v. 



6 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

some of the German names of plants which resemble Old 
English are not cognates, but were derived from words used 
by the Saxon missionaries, who first brought with them the 
knowledge of the virtues of those plants. -"^ 

The old word for garden was " wyrt5erd," a plant yard, 
or " wyrttun," a plant enclosure ; also the form " ort5erd," 
or " orceard," which is the same as our word orchard, though 
the meaning is now confined to an enclosure planted with fruit- 
trees. " Wyrt," or " wurt," was used for any sort of vegetable 
or herb, and is the same as the modern word " wort," suffixed 
to so many names of plants, as " St. John's Wort," or " herb 
John." Sometimes a special plant filled most of the enclosure ; 
thus the kitchen garden was occasionally called the " leac tun," 
or leek enclosure. We still speak of an appleyard, the old 
" appultun," or " appul5erd," but we say a cherry-orchard, 
while the old word was equally simply " cherry 5erd."^ A 
part of the monastery garden laid down in grass, where no 
flowers were grown, was called the " gras5erd," and in like 
manner the space surrounded by the cloisters was the 
" cloyster3erd." The modern word garden is another form of 
this word " 5erd," garth, or yard ; all are derived from an 
Aryan root meaning an enclosure. 

At this early period, and for many centuries later, gardens 
were planted chiefly for their practical use, and vegetables and 
herbs were grown for physic or ordinary diet. Flowering plants 
were but rarely admitted solely on account of their beauty. 
But it does not necessarily follow that bright and pretty flowers 
found no place within the garden walls. Roses, lilies, violets, 
peonies, poppies, and such-like, all had medicinal uses, and 
therefore would not be excluded. 

The beauty of flowers appeals to nearly everyone, and even in 
the most disorderly periods of our early history they may have 
exercised some softening influence. A pretty story is told of 
William Rufus, which shows that monarch, as it were for a 
moment, in a more gentle light than perhaps any other incident 
during his turbulent reign. Eadgyth, or Matilda, afterwards 

*■ The German for Plantago is " Wegbreit," the A.S. " Waegbroede." 
The old German for Camomile was " meghede," the A.S. " magede.'' 
2 MSS. Gardeners' Accounts, Norwich Priory. 



MONASTIC GARDENING 7 

the wife of Henry I., was being educated at the convent of 
Romsey, where her Aunt Christina was Abbess. When the 
child was twelve years old, the Red King wished to see her, 
and one day the Abbess was distressed to hear him and his 
knights demanding admission at the convent gate. The good 
lady, fearing some evil purpose towards the child, made her 
wear a nun's veil ; then she opened to the King, who entered, 
" as if to look at the roses and other flowering herbs." While 
the rough King thus inspected her flowers, the Abbess made 
the nuns pass through the garden. Eadgyth appearing veiled 
among the rest, the King suffered her to go by, and quietly 
took his leave. ^ The story was told by the Abbess to Ansehn, 
who narrated it to Eadmer, in whose history this most pic- 
turesque scene is recorded. 

While the Abbess Christina was adorning her cloister gardens 
with roses and flowering herbs, other monasteries were being 
beautified in Uke manner. The first Abbot of Ely, Brithnodus, 
was famed for his skill in planting and grafting, and improved 
the Abbey by making orchards and gardens around it.^ 

It seems as if there were gardens at Ely earher than his 
time (twelfth century), as the following quaint story impHes 
the existence of some sort of garden in the neighbourhood of 
Ely. It is related among various miracles wrought at the tomb 
of St. Etheldreda^ how the hand of a girl was cured. She was 
servant to a certain priest, and " was gathering herbs in the 
garden on the Lord's Day, when the wood which she held 
in her hand, and with which she desired to pluck the herbs 
unlawfully, so firmly adhered (to her hand) that no man could 
pluck it out for the space of five years ; by the merits of St. 
Etheldreda [she] was cured." The Saint died in 679, and, 
although of no historical value, surely such a curious legend 
is worth relating. 

* Migne, PatrologicB cursus completus, torn. 159-160, sec. xii. 
" Eadmer," p. 427. Also D'Achery, Spicilegium (Paris, 1723), vol. ii., 
p. 893. Freeman, Wm. Rufus, vol. ii., p. 32. 

" Rex siquidem propter inspiciendas rosas et alias florentes herbas, 
claustrum nostrum ingressus." 

^ Gale, HistoficB Britannicce, 1691. "Hist. Eliensis," liber ii., 
chap. ii. 

^ Dugdale, Monasticon, vol. i., p. 473 (new ed.). 



8 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

The earliest view of a monastery garden in this country 
appears to be that in the plans or bird's-eye views of the 
monastic buildings at Canterbury, made about 1165, and bound 
up with the Great Psalter of Eadwin, now in the library of 
Trinity College, Cambridge. These drawings seem to have been 
made (probably by the engineer Wibert or his assistants) to 
record the system of waterworks and drainage of the monastery.^ 
One of them shows the Herbarium, which occupies half the 
space between the Dormitory and the Infirmary, surrounded by 
cloisters ; the other the orchard and vineyard, which were 
situated beyond the walls. The first plan records also trees 
within the wall near the fish-pond. In later times a further 
wall was built beyond the fish-pond, including what was after- 
wards known as the old convent garden, the site of which was 
obtained in parcels between the years 1287 and 1368. There 
must have been another orchard on the west of the great cloister 
and a garden into which the palace of the Archbishop looked, 
but these were beyond the limits of the plans, although con- 
temporary with them, as they are associated with the closing 
scenes in the hfe of Thomas Becket (1170). The knights who 
were soon after his murderers " Threw off their cloaks and 
gowns under a large sycamore in the garden, appeared in their 
armour and girt on their swords," and armed men were col- 
lected in the orchard, so that Becket and his attendant monks, 
flying to the church, had to pass through a small door at the 
back of the cloister, instead of going by the usual passage 
through the orchard to the west end of the church.^ 

Few records of such an early date have come down to us, but 
monastic hfe did not quickly change, and probably the gardens 
of the fourteenth century differed little from those of the 
twelfth. To gain a fuller knowledge of these gardens, we must 
pass over two centuries to the time when written accounts 
begin to be preserved, and there is more material on which 
to work. From the study of old manuscripts the outHnes of 
the management of these gardens are clear, although the 
details can only be filled in by imagination. 

* Architectural Hist, of the Man. of Christ Church, Canterbury, the 
Rev. Robert Willis, M.A., F.R.S. ArchcBologia Cantiana, vol. vii.. 1868, 
^ Hist. Memorials of Canterbury, Dean Stanley. 




ORCHARD AND VINEYARD OF THE MONASTERY OF CANTERBURY. 
From MS.'c. ii6^. 







J_4 1— .--ij')^..,,/--,. y^-/..p/|.„. 



■^ 'l ii (a^ ? ; ^^ye< 



^'^*^^!^ 



PART OF THE PLAN OF THE MONASTERY OF CANTERBURY. 
From MS. c. ii6^. 



To face page 8. 



^ 



MONASTIC GARDENING 9 

Each department within the monastery was directed in a 
regular and orderly way, and was presided over by an officer, 
with set duties to perform, who had to keep the accounts of 
his office, and was responsible for its management. There 
was a Gardener, or Hortulanus, or Gardinarius, or Garden 
Warder, just as much as there was an Almoner, Sacristan, 
Precentor, or any other officer. 

In some instances the accounts of the Hortulanus exist, and 
further references to gardening matters are scattered through- 
out various chartularies. Two very perfect series are those of 
Norwich Priory and Abingdon Abbey,^ and they are doubtless 
fair examples of the Gardeners' accounts in the majority of 
monasteries. There are four accounts at Abingdon, the 
earliest for the year 1369-70. The Norwich series is far more 
numerous, as there are some thirty rolls, the earliest 1340, the 
last 1529, the first decade of the fifteenth century being well 
represented. 

These accounts show the receipts and expenses of the office, 
the cost of repairs, the money received from the few products 
sold ; but they throw no Hght on the processes of cultivation, 
nor do they particularize the plants M^hich were grown. 

Like the other officers, or obedientiars, the Hortulanus had 
his " famulus " to assist in the work, and was also allowed to 
employ labourers, and money was forthcoming for their pay- 
ment from the rent of some small piece of land, or some tene- 
ments which belonged to the office. At Ramsey Abbey ^ there 
were two " famuli " in the garden, and their payment {circa 
1170 A.D.) was " to each of them fourteen loaves " and two 
acres of land.^ But in spite of various small rents and money 
received from the surplus garden produce, or grain grown on 
the lands belonging to the garden office, the accounts do not 

^ Those at Norwich are only in MS. Those at Abingdon are printed 
by Camden Soc, Accounts of the Obedientiars of Abingdon Abbey, R. E. G. 
Kirk, 1892. 

^ Cartularium Monastevii de Rameseia, Wm. Hart. List of Monastic 
officers. 

^ At Durham monastery the payment was to "Robert Kyrvour, 
ortulanus, per annum 5s.," together with a few other small payments 
amounting to about another 5s. {Durham Household Book, Surtees 
Society) . 



10 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

always show a balance on the right side, and the receipts not 
infrequently failed to cover the expenses. 

In early times the monks seem to have worked better, or 
at any rate managed more carefully, for the garden paid its 
expenses ; but at Norwich, as the years went on, the ofhce got 
more and more into debt. In 1429 " the expenses exceed the 
receipts, £8 2s. 8^d. "; in 1431 there is a deficit of £1^ i6s. 8|d. 
Then a new plan began, and the garden was let to a certain 
Wilham Draper, who paid 40s. for the farm of it ;^ this state 
of things continued to the end of the period covered by these 
accounts. The following are transcriptions of some of the 
rolls ; the greater part are translated from the Latin, but the 
words in quotation marks are spelt as they occur in the 
originals. 

The earliest roll, a.d. 1340, is here given complete : 

Account of brother Peter de Donewich of the garden in the 14th year 
of Dan WiUiam de Claxton Prior. 

Receipts — 

Remainder of preceding account, 73s. 8d. 

Of rent of assize that is to say from Adam Gilbirt now holding one 
shop in Nedle rowe, i8d. — of " fagot " branches and roots, 
-^^ 28s. 2^d. — of rods [of] " osiers," 13s. ^d. — of timber " Stamholt 
and wrong," gs. 8d. — of hay, 36s. lod. — of beans, i5d. — of 
herbs, 13d. — of garhck, iid. — of apples & pears, 13s. 4jd. — of 
" Sandice " {Sandal wood ?), 5s. 6d. — of eggs, 14s. — of " hemp- 
sede," id. — of wax, 9s. 7d. — of " forage," 2s. — of " lapp," 3s. 

Sum of receipts, ;^8 19s. 6d. 

Of I cow, 3 bullocks, 27s. — of calves, 8s. 2d. — of milk, 65s. gd. — of 

the farm of i cow demised to farm, 2s. — sum, 102s. iid. 
Sum of whole receipts, £jj i6s. i|^d. 

Expenses — 

In the wages of servants, 13s. — in their stipends, los. — in the wages 
of the " garcionem," 14s. iid. — in stipends, 2s. — also given to 
the same of favour, 20s. — given to a certain " pageto " by the 
year, 2s. 3d. 

^ Examples of the entries : 

1471. Receipts " From the great garden demised to John Plomer 

for the term of 20 years this being the sixth, 25s." 
1487. " From Robert Castyr for the farm of the great garden, 

demised to him for the term of 10 years this being the 

second, 26s. 8d." 



MONASTIC GARDENING ii 

Pensions and Contributions — 

In the O of the gardener, 26s. 8d. — in oblations of servants and 
certain men of the Court, by favour, 2s. iid. — in alms, 2s. 2jd. 
— to the Scholars of Oxford, 2s. — to the Sub-Prior for the 
cloister, 2s. — to the cellarer for the cutting of herbs, 2s. — to the 
Almoner for the tithe of the garden, 12s. — in one tenth to the 
Lord the King, i|-d. — to the Cardinals, Jd. — in oblations and 
" flaunis," 13d. ( =flaun =custards, or pancakes, at rogations) — 
to the reapers of the Lord Prior, 6d. — to John de Leverington, 
6d. — to the Carpenter of John de Berney, 6d. — to the " bos- 
car " ( =woodman) of the Lord Bishop, 6d. — in gloves, 7s. — 
sum, 60s. Jd. 

Mowing and other things — 

In the mowing of the meadow for both crops and of the court and 
paths, 3s. 5d. — in peas for pottage of the convent and servants, 
3s. 3d. — in mustard seed, 3s. 3d. — in beans, 2s. 2d. — also in 
beans and butter in the convent, I5d. — in cherries, 8^d. — in 
milk, i6d. — in forage, 12s. iid. — sum, 28s. 3jd. 

Weeding and Hiring — 

In weeding and " aids," 30s. 2d. — in the stipend of Ralph Brenetour 
and others working upon the bank and cleaning the ditch in 
the meadow for 12 days, 8s. — taking by the day, 8d. — in their 
drinks and other expenses, I2d. — in the stipend for one car- 
penter carving timber and mending other divers things, 2S. — 
in one tiler roofing with tiles and doing other things, 3d. — 
sum, 41S. 5d. — in " Pikerell " and roach for stock, 2s. 5d. — in 
lard, tallow and candle, 8d. — in iron spades and fixing " bills," 
3d. — ^in mending an " axes " and in one new " Hachet," yd. — 

: in " skalerons " {? escallions =scalions =small onions), id. — In 

dung, 3s. 3d. — in keys, 4jd. — in " Juncis " {—rushes) for the 
Infirmary, lod. — in 2 " tribul " {=sieves or rakes), 2 spades, 
2 dung forks, new ironed, i2d. — in i scythe, id. — in " moles," 
id. — in a wooden measure, 3|^d. — in 2 " clayes " for the bank, 
lod. — in the " dentation " of a scythe [handle], id. — in cord 
(or string), id. — in one earthen pot, id. — 4350 tiles with car- 
riage, los. 2d. — in pasture allowed from the Lord Bishop, that 
is to say " le hundhill," 2s. 2d. — in three " limours cenonette " 
{? whitewashers), iid. — given to the " raton " { =rat-catcher) , 
id. — in parchment, id. — Sum, 24s. 5d. — in boots of the gar- 
dener with repairs, 2S. 6d. — in wine sent to the Lord Prior and 
given to the brethren with divers expenses made in blood 
lettings and at St. Leonards at times, lis. lo^d. — in divers 
spices and almonds, 2S. yjd.- — in foreign expenses, 8d. — in 
" Wardecorgard," 2s. 6d. — Sum, 20s. 2d. — Sum of all the 
expenses, ;^io i8s. i|d., so the receipt exceeds the expenses, 
£6 17s. II Jd. 



12 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

A.D. 1402. Account of brother Thomas Rughton of the ofiB.ce of gar- 
dener, 22nd year of Prior Alexander, Michaelmas to Hilary. 
Receipts — 

Excess of the account of the year preceding, 43s. lod. — for pears 
and nuts (" avelanis "), 4s. 4d. — for apples, i6d. — for herbage, 
I5d. — for dry trees, i8s. 3d. — " pro faggots and Astel " 
{=shavings), lis. 3d. — for willows, gd. — for plants of herbs,' 
2S. 3d. — for cock and hens, i8d. — for onions, 3s. lod. — for 
osiers, 3s. 4d. — for leeks, 6d. — for " tasel " ( =teasel), 5s. lod. — 
for trees sold to the Master of the Cellar, 35s. 4d. — for " lawyr 
of crab thorn " and other things sold to the Master of the 
Cellar, 35s. 4d. — " pro lawyr of wythis," lod. — Sum, £^ i8s. yd. 
• — Sum total of the receipts, I'j 2s. 5d. 

Expenses — 

First for rushes and carriage of the same, 5s. — for gar lick and onions, 
28. — for mustard seed, 8s. 6Jd. — for beans, 3d. — for planting 
beans, I2d. — for parchment, 3d. In stipends of the servants 
to one of them, los. 6d. — to the other of them, los. — for their 
" tunics," 8s. — to the labourers in the garden, 2s. 4d. — to other 
labourers about " tasel," 3s. 5d. — to the scholars of Oxford, 
i8d. — in the presence of the Lord Prior for small things and 
other recreations, 2S. 6d. — for milk for the convent, 2s. 2d. — to 
the cellarer for knives, 2s. — in oblations at Christmas, 3s. — for 
the boots of the gardener, i5d. — for spades, shovels, and other 
utensils, I3jd. — in gifts, 6d. 

Sum of all expenses, £^ 8s. id. 

And so the receipts exceed the expenses, £'^ 14s. 4d. 

A.D. 1403. Extract from the account of brother Thomas de Corpsty, 
Michaelmas, 5th year of Henry IV., to the same feast in the 23rd year 
of Prior Alexander. 

Receipts — 

" Pro albell " ( =ahele, white poplar), 8s. 8d. — for timber, 6s. 8d. — 
" pro crabdractis and ok " {? crab draughts, cartloads of crab- 
trees and oak), 3s. gd. — " pro tasles," 6s. 8d. — " pro star " 
{=sedge) and reed, i6d. — " pro lillys " {=lilies), Jd. — for the 
small garden, 8d. — for the meadow demised, 37s. 8d. — sum of 
receipts, ;£io 3s. gd. 

Expenses — 

Arrears, 59s. 4d. — seed of onion bought, i2d. — for nails and keys, 
6d. — tenths of the Lord the King, ijd. — gloves, yd. — " Pro 
tribul " ( =rake), spades, &c., 3s. gjd. — for O O of the gardener, 
26s. 8d. — stipends of the servants : To one of them, i6s., to 
the other of them, 15s. 2d. — for their tunics, 8s. lod. — on the 
day of the account, i2d. 

Sum of the expenses, £S 8s. 6d. — with the arrears, ;^ii 7s. lod. 

The expenses exceed the receipts, 24s. id. 



MONASTIC GARDENING I3 

AD 1427 (complete). Account of brother William Metyghan from 
S. Mkhael to S. Gregory. 6th Henry VI., in the ist year of Prior WiUiam. 

^'"porlierbs. " lekys " and " Porrettes." 4s. -for faggots ('' fasci- 
culis"), Astill and " ozyerys " {=osiers). 8s. 2d -for the 
meadows from the cellarer. 20s.— for the garden between the 
gates, i2d.— sum of receipts, 33s. 2d. 

^""^ Arrel^s of preceding year. 68s.-for mustard seed. 7s. 4d.-to the 
Almoner 12s —for milk in Advent and Qumquagesima, 4s. 3d. 
—for planting garlic and beans and for weeding. 2s.— to work- 
men hired at times, isd.-in medicines of the gardener, 2s 
in the presence of the Lord Prior, and at St. Leonards and 
elsewhere, 3s. 2d.— in gifts to the servants at Christmas, iSd.— 
in the repair of the houses, utensils. " schelvis.' and boards 
bou-ht <5S 4d.— in the boots of the gardener. i2d.— to Thomas 
theWvant for stipend. i2S.-to John the servant, gs.-for 
their tunics, los. 
Sum of expenses, 71s. lod. 
Sum of all expenses with arrears, £6 i8s. lod. 
So the expenses exceed the receipts, £5 5s- 8d. 
A D 1484. Account of brother John Metham, from Michaelmas ist. 
Richard IIL, and Michaelmas 2nd, Richard IIL Prior John Bonwell- 
Remainder of account of preceding year. 

ReceiDts ^s =?M First from the Lord Prior for the parcel of the garden 

^ anneJed by the separation of the great " fosse " [ditch) [to] le 

ortterd " of the same, i6d.— for beans sold, for the straw of 

the same for " eldyng " (=fuel), 6s. lod.-onions sold, i6d.- 

Sum of receipts with remainder, £4 7s. 

^^^ T?th^ and no more, because certain tenements are built on the soil 
of the garden, in " Holmstrete."— scholars, brother John 
Helgey and brother William Gedney.— Robert Cook for pottage 
made of peas and spices for the convent, 6d.-for " fnxures ;; 
/ _ fritters) —for labour of labourers in extracting the mosse 
from the cloister green, 6d.— for cleaning the great ditch that 
goes round the garden with the small ditch which is next the 
•' scaccarium " {^exchequer) of the gardener, i8d— (several 
payments to labourers mentioned by name.)— for gryffing, 
4d — for digging and other things. lo^d.— pay to Thomas Mylys 
and Henry Cobyller, of the Parish of St. John of Matermarket, 
for thrice mowing the garden and " bina " ( =twtce) mowing 
the cloister 3s —For one " wyndowstal " for the orto cersor 
( =cherry garden)-ior '< flagello " ( =flatl). id.-for labourers 
for ingathering mustard seed with the threshing of the same, 7d. 
Sum of expenses, ^4 7S. 7id. Receipts exceed the expenses 

28. lOjd. 



14 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Some items occur without variation every year, such as the 
payments to the servants, and their tunics, boots, and gloves. 
The gloves are not uncommon entries ; they appear among the 
accounts of Bicester,^ Bury, Holy Island, and other places. 
They were probably thick gloves for weeding. 

The O of the gardener is also of regular occurrence, as it was 
expenses 'at a yearly feast, and the O refers to the antiphon 
sung on the occasion by the Hortulanus, commencing " O 
Radix Jesse." In the Abingdon Accounts it is entered, " To 
O Radix, 6s. lod.," and another time (a.d. 1388) still more at 
length, " In expensis factis pro mittent-exennia ad O Radix 
XVId." This " O Radix Jesse " was the third of the seven 
Roman or Gregorian Great Os,^ the antiphons which preceded 
and again followed the Magnificat at vespers before Christmas. 
The first, O Sapientia, was sung on December i6th, and the day 
is still marked in the Kalendar of the Book of Common Prayer. 
The Abbot seems usually to have been the officiant on that 
occasion ; the Prior sang the next, " O Adonai," and on the 
igth the Hortulanus was the ofhciant, and sang the special 
antiphon. The well-known Advent hymn, " O come, O come, 
Emmanuel," is a translation by John Mason Neale (1818-1866) 
of a Latin versification of five of the Great Os written about 
the thirteenth century ; the second verse of this hymn being a 
paraphrase of the O of the gardener. 

It will be noticed also that in these and other accounts 
the tithe is deducted. The year in which it first was enacted 
that tithe should be paid " of fruit trees and every seed 
and herb of the garden" was a.d. 1305, the decree insisting 
on the payment being issued by the Council at Merton, in 
Surrey.^ 

The chief variations as a rule are in the tools bought, and in 
the repairs. " For a saw," " knives for herbs," " mending a 
hatchet," " repairs of the garden wall," " lock and keys for the 
gates," etc. ; and sometimes fruit, apples, cherries, beans, 
onions, or such-like, had to be bought when the garden supply 

^ Bloraefield, History of Bicester. 

^ Archcsologia, vol. xlix. Article by Everard Green, F.S.A. 
* Wilkins' Concilia, vol. ii., p. 278 ; " Mertonense," 1305, " at de 
fructibus arborum et seminibus omnibus et herbis hortorum." 



MONASTIC GARDENING 15 

fell short. But this " great garden " under the care of the 
Hortulanus was not by any means the only garden. Many 
other office-holders had gardens too. 

In a plan compiled from the remains and the records of 
Bicester Priory the relative positions of the various gardens, the 
Prior's, Canon's, Irdrmarian's, and the Sacrist's, as well as the 
great garden, kitchen-garden, and orchard is shown, and this 
quantity of distinct gardens is not in excess of the usual 
number.^ As a rule the Prior had an enclosure of his own. At 
Melsa there was both " the garden which is called the Prior's," 
and " the garden of the Abbot's chamber."^ At the Abbey of 
Haghmon, in Shropshire, the Prior was allotted " for his recrea- 
tions a certain chamber under the dormitory, . . . with the 
garden of old called ' Longenores gardine,' annexed to the 
chamber before-mentioned, together with the dovecote in the 
same."^ 

At Norwich, payments occur to the gardener from the Lord 
Prior for a " parcel of the garden," or small piece reserved for 
his special use. The " little garden," or " garden within the 
gates," at Norwich, was let to the cellarer. The Sacristan, the 
Treasurer, the Precentor, and the " Custos operum," all had 
separate gardens at Abingdon, and paid rent for them to the 
gardinarius. At Winchester, the payment to the gardener, 
" Roberto Basynge, custodi gardini conventus," occurs in the 
Receiver's account (a.d. 1334) as well as charges for mowing the 
Ahnoner's garden, and besides these the " custos operum " 
defrayed the expenses of a garden called " Le Joye." The 
Infiraiarian's garden was usually an important one, as in it 
he grew heahng herbs for the sick of the monastery, and for 
convenience this plot was, as a rule, placed near the infirmary 
or hospital. At Westminster, the present httle cloister is part 
of the old infirmary, and the ground near it now known as the 
" College garden " formed part of the old Infirmary garden. 
Fruit-trees were grown in it besides the usual medicinal herbs, 
and there must have been more than enough for their needs, 
as John de Mordon, the Infirmarian, sold gs. worth of apples 

^ J. C. Blomefield, History of the Deanery of Bicester. 
* Abbot Burton's Chronicle of Melsa, vol. iii., p. 242. 
^ Dugdale, Monasticon (new ed.), vol. vi., p. 112. 



i6 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

in 1362, and the next year he received los. for pears and apples 
sold.^ To the west of the Infirmary lay the " Grete " garden, 
and the Abbot's own garden was on the part of Broad Sanctuary 
which now surrounds the Crimean monument, and was in the 
north-west angle of the old wall. There were, furthermore, 
the " Hostry " garden, beyond the stream which skirted the 
monastery and turned a mill near where it fell into the Thames 
at " Millbank." Not far from here was the " bowHng alley " 
and the kitchen-garden. There was an osier-bed in a small 
island in the stream, and somewhere to the west of it the 
" Precentors' mede " and the " Almoner's mede," or " Almery 
garden." On the site of Vine Street was situated the vineyard, 
and " Market Mede " was hard by, where Market Street now 
runs. The Cellarer had a large garden farther off, probably 
the " Convent," or Covent, Garden of later times. Besides 
this, there were other gardens which were sometimes in the 
hands of the monastery, but more frequently let. One of 
these — " Maudit's " garden — is frequently referred to in the 
accounts. 2 This garden was part of some land exchanged 
with Thomas Maudit, Earl of Warwick, in the thirteenth 
century. 

In^ all countries, heathen and Christian, and in all ages, 
flowers have played an important part in ceremonies, such as 
funeral rites and marriage feasts. England in the Middle 
Ages was no exception ; and the use of flowers in the services 
of the Church, in crowning the priests, wreathing candles, or 
adorning shrines, was very general. 

The gardens within the monastery walls for providing these 
flowers were under the care of the Sacristan. At Abingdon, he 
paid the gardinarius four bushels of corn for the rent of his 
garden,^ At Norwich, the Sacristan seems to have had more 
than one garden, as a very cursory glance at the MS. accounts 
of that office shows the names of both " St. Mary's " and the 

^ MSS. Records, Westminster Abbey. 

^ " A Toft called Maudit's garden," etc., 1350, MSS. Records, West- 
minster Abbey. 

^ Abingdon Accounts, R. E. G. Kirk : 

1388-9, et de iiij bussellis frumenti de Sacrista pro orto suo, 
nichil hie in denarijs quia recipiuntur in sua specie ut patet 
extra. 



MONASTIC GARDENING t^ 

" green garden."^ There was a " gardinum Sacristae *' at Win- 
chester as early as the ninth century,^ and to this day a piece 
of ground on the east side of the north transept of the cathedral 
bears the name of " Paradise," and marks the site of the 
Sacrist's garden. The fifteenth-century doorway, which was 
the entrance to the enclosure, is still standing. 

Such a garden as this is referred to when the Abbot of 
Ramsey, between 1114-1130, had to come to some agreement 
about certain pieces of land in London which adjoined the 
property of the Priory of the Holy Trinity ; and the Prior con- 
sented^ " to give up his claim which he had upon the chapel 
of the Abbot, and the garden which is before the chapel." 
These " gardini Sacristae " were not only found within monastic 
precincts, but were attached to many churches and chapels. 
The Hortulanus of Abingdon let out a garden " next to St. 
Nicholas' Church " to the Rector, for a term of years.'* There 
is an interesting record of the chapel garden in the Manor of 
Wookey, in Somersetshire, which belonged to the Bishops of 
Bath and Wells, in the account of the Reeve of that place for 
the year 1461-2.^ Three men were employed for four and a half 
days at 2d. a day, " digging and cleaning the chapel garden." 

Henry VI. left such a garden to the church of Eton College. 
The clause in his will nms thus : " The space between the wall 
of the church and the wall of the cloister shall conteyne 38 feet, 
which is left for to sett in certaine trees and flowers, behovable 
and convenient for the service of the same church," and it was 
to be surrounded by " a good high wall with towers convenient 
thereto."^ Many other such examples of gardens connected 
with churches could be enumerated. 

^ Sacrist's Account, MS., Norwich : 

1431. " In weeding in the garden of St. Mary, 2s." 
1428. " For weeding in the ' green garden.' " 

1489. " Received for the trunk of a pear-tree blown down by the 
wind, iid." 

Gardener's Account, 1472 : " For farm of the garden of the Sacrist, 2S." 

^ Wharton, Anglia Sacra, Part I., p. 209. 

^ CarttUarium Monasterii de Rameseia, vol. i., p. 133. 

* 1413. Accounts, by Kirk. 

^ History of the Parish and Manor of Wookey, by T. S. Holmes. 

* Nichols' Wills of the Kings and Queens of England, ed. 1780, 
p. 298. 

2 



i8 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

At all great functions, both during the processions or while 
performing the services, the priests were crowned with flowers. 
This was specially the custom at St. Paurs,^ in London ; and 
when, on June 30th, 1405, Bishop Roger de Walden was in- 
stalled there, he and the Canons of the Cathedral walked in 
solemn procession, wearing garlands of red roses. ^ Some land 
in Essex was leased in 1274 by Henry de Borham, Dean of 
St. Paul's, to a kinswoman for the yearly rent of a chaplet of 
roses at the Feast of St. John the Baptist.^ Perhaps he wore 
the crown thus supplied during his tenure of office. 

The use of these " coronae sacerdotales," or wreaths worn by 
the priests on feast days, continued for many centuries,"* and 
their prevalence up to the time of the Reformation is apparent 
from various churchwardens' accounts. These entries, however, 
are not frequent, as the gardens attached to the churches were 
evidently, as a rule, able to supply sufficient flowers for ordinary 
use, and it was only for great occasions, or on special feast-days, 
when larger quantities were required, that they had to be bought. 

For instance, at St. Mary Hill, where some entries are found 
in the accounts, there was a garden near the church.^ 

A.D. 

1483-1497. St. Mary Hill. Churchwarden's Account: "For birch at 
Midsomer, 8d. — Box and palme on Palmesonday, is. — Polis on 
Estir evyne, lod. — Garlondes on Corpus Christi day, lod. — A 
dozen and a half rose garlondes on St. Barnebe's day, 8^d. — 
for rose garlondis and wodrove garlondis on Seynt Barnebe's 
day, I id. — for two doss, di bocse garlondes for prests and 
clerkes on St. Barnebe daye. 

1510. For palme fio^vrys and cake on Palme Sunday, lod. 
Also at St. Martin Outwich, London, 1524 : 

Item — For rose garlands on Corpus Christi day, 6d. — Item — For 
byrche at Midsomer, 2d. — Item — For rose garlands, brede, 
wyne, & ale on ij Sent Marten's days, I5jd. — Item — For holy 
and ivy at Chrystmas, 2jd. 

1525. Paid for palme on Palme Sunday, 2jd. Paid for brome ageynst 
Ester, id. Payd for rosse garlonds on Corpus Christi daye, 6d. 

* Polydore Vergil, De rerum Inventoribus, lib. ii. 

^ Historia de Episcopis et Decanis Londiniensibus , by H. Wharton, 
1695, p. 150. 
^ " Unam capellam rose," Ancient Deeds Record Office, A6458. 

* " Ceremonial Use of Flowers," Nineteenth Century, 1880. 

^ Nichols, Illustrations of the Manners and Expenses in England . . . 
deduced from Accounts of Churchwardens, etc., 1797. 



MONASTIC GARDENING 19 

When; such decorating of churches was considered unlawful 
after the Reformation, these gardens would naturally fall into 
disuse, even where the lands they covered were not at once 
appropriated for other purposes. 

In 1618 James I. set forth a declaration permitting certain 
" lawfull recreations . . . after divine service,^ and allowed 
that women should have leave to carry rushes to the church for 
the decoring of it according to their old custome." These 
rushes may have been simply for the floor, and not for the 
altar or walls, as, for example, when in 1580 churchwardens at 
Wing, in Buckinghamshire, spent id. for " one burden of roshes 
to strewe the church howse agaynst the comyssyoners sate 
there."^ In the vestry book of the Parish of St. Nicholas, 
Durham, 1665-1703, there are several entries of the purchase of 
rushes for the floor as well as for birch for decorating. " For 
Birkes for the church at Whitsontide, is. 8d. To Lancelot 
Dunn for the pewes of the church dressing, and for rashes laying 
in every pew the 21st of July 1670. 8s. "^ 

Coles, writing as late as 1656, says : " It is not very long since 
the custome of seting up garlands in churches hath been left off 
with us : and in some places setting up of holly, ivy, rosemary, 
bayes, yew, &c., in churches at Christmas, is still in use."^ 
This, however, is looking too far ahead, and at the time we are 
considering, the monks within the quiet cloister, week by week 
and year by year, supplied the best flowers their skill and 
knowledge could produce to adorn their churches and chapels. 

But to return to the consideration of the department of the 
gardinarius. He had more than the garden under his care, for 
his jmrisdiction extended over both the orchard and vineyard. 

The orchard, or " pomerium," supphed not only apples and 
pears for eating and cooking, but apples for cider also. Large 
quantities of cider were made each year, except when in an 
unusually bad season the apple crop failed. This was the case 
in 1352, when the Almoner at Winchester made the following 
note in his accounts, " Et de ciserat nihil quia non fuerunt 

^ Fuller, Church History, London, 1655, Book X., p. 74. 

^ Archcsologia, vol. xxxvi., p. 238. 

^ Durham Parish Books, Surtees Society. 

* The Art of Simpling, by W. Coles, 1656. 

2 — 2 



20 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

poma hoc anno." 141 2 was another bad apple year, and no 
cider was made at Abingdon, and the not unfrequent purchase 
of apples and pears for the use of some of the monasteries shows 
they did not always grow sufficient for their consumption, 
although in some years there was enough and to spare, ^ The 
Wardon pear, which was such a favourite for many centuries, 
originated at the Cistercian monastery of that name in Bedford- 
shire, and they bore three Wardon pears for the arms of the 
house. ^ It was a kind of cooking pear, and every early cookery- 
book contains recipes for " Wardon pies," or " pasties." They 
are usually mentioned quite as a distinct fruit, as " apples, 
pears, Wardons, and quinces," because they were the best- 
known variety, and are even specified as a " quit rent," land 
having been held by the payment of three " Wardon Peryz " 
yearly at Christmas.^ 

Some of the orchards must have been of considerable size. 
In the time of King John the grant of land to Llanthony Priory 
included twelve acres of orchard. An oft-quoted example to 
prove the early existence of orchards is a Bull of Pope Alex- 
ander III., dated 1175, confiscating the property of the monks 
of Winchenley, in Gloucestershire, with the " town of S wiring 
and all its orchards." 

The cherry was a popular fruit in this country from the 
date of the introduction of garden varieties by the Romans. 
The " ciris beam," or cherry-tree, continued to be grown in 
early Saxon times. In the twelfth century it was one of the 
fruit-trees praised by Necham, Abbot of Cirencester, in his 
poem, " De laudibus divinae Sapientiae," and this fruit was 
not forgotten in any monastic garden. 

At Norwich, besides the " Pomerium," the appleyard or 
orchard, there was a " cherry 5erd," or, as it is called in another 
place, " orto cersor," or cherry-garden, and in spite of this addi- 
tional cherries had to be bought " for the convent " from time to 

^ Gardeners' Accounts, Abingdon, 1388, " Et de xiii s. iiii d. de cicera 
vendita per estimacione et de xxxii s. vi d. ob. de fructibus venditis, 
viz. : pomis wardon et nucibus." 

^ Dugdale, Monast., vol. v., p. 371, says they were also called Abbot's 
pears, but assigns no authority. 

^ Land granted to Roger Barf ot and Margaret his wife, of Wikemere, 
8th Richard II. Ancient Deeds Record Ofiice, A9011. 



MONASTIC GARDENING 21 

time, so great was the demand for this fruit. Perhaps it was 
the too frequent use of it that suggested to Necham the advisa- 
bihty of warning his readers that " cherries, mulberries, and 
grapes should be eaten fasting, and not after a meal."^ 

The third department, of the " Garden Warder," must now 
be considered. It has been already pointed out that vines were 
grown by the Romans in Britain, and, with the exception of the 
gap immediately following Roman rule, their history is con- 
tinuous. Tradition points to a place called Vine, in Hamp- 
shire, as having taken its name from the vines planted there 
during the time of the Emperor Probus. Vines, the " Wines- 
treow," are noticed as boundaries or landmarks at several places 
in Saxon charters of the tenth century, and these might have 
been survivals of Roman vineyards.^ 

Bede, writing early in the eighth century, says that Britain 
" excels for grain and trees ... it also produces vines in some 
places."^ In the laws of Alfred,"* which were chiefly compila- 
tions of existing ones, it was notified that anyone who 
" damaged the vineyard or field of another should give com- 
pensation." In the tenth century King Edwy confirmed the 
grant of a vineyard at Pathenesburgh, in Somerset, to the 
Abbey of Glastonbury. The grapes were gathered in October, 
and that month was called " Winter filling moneth," or " Wyn 
moneth," another proof of the extent to which vines were 
cultivated. The pruning of the vine took place in February. 
The picture of vine-pruners taken from an Anglo-Saxon MS. 
in the British Museum illustrates that month in the calendar. 

Necham devotes a chapter of his De Naturis Rerum to the 
vine, but he chiefly moralizes, and does not treat his subject in 
its practical sense. He records that in gathering grapes, having 
reached the final row, the workers in the vineyard break into a 
song of rejoicing, but, unfortunately, he does not satisfy a 
natural curiosity by handing down the words of their chant. 

^ Necham, De Naturis Rerum. 

^ Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus, vol. v. 

MCXLVI. Eadmund, 943. Lechamstide. 

MCLXXVII. Ealdred, 949. Boxoram. 

MCXCVIII. Eadwig. 956. Welligforda, &c. 
''' Bede, Hist. Eccle. gentis Anglorum, ed. 1848, p. 108. 
* LL. Saxon., Wilkins, p. 31. LL. Aelf., 26. 



22 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

In Domesday Book, the " vinitor," or vine-dresser, is only 
once mentioned, but some idea of the size of the vineyards 
may be gathered from the survey, as about thirty-eight in many 
different counties are described.^ They are usually measured 
by " arpendi," the arpends being equal to about an acre, or 
less. The largest was at Bitesham, in Berkshire, on the land 
of Henry de Ferrieres, and covered twelve arpends. Some 
vineyards were old, others but newly planted, as at Westminster 
four arpends are described as " vineas noviter plantatae," and at 
Ware another vineyard as " nuperrime plantatse." Some of 
the vineyards bore grapes, while others did not, and these are 
distinguished as " vinese portantes," or " vineae non portantes." 
The quantity of wine yielded by a vineyard of six arpends in 
Essex was as much as twenty " modii," or about forty gallons, 
if the season was favourable. 

If England could boast of so many vineyards before the 
Norman Conquest, it was only natural that the influx of 
foreigners from a grape-growing country should infuse fresh 
ardour into vine-culture, and monasteries, with Abbots or 
Priors from the Continent, lost no time in improving the old 
and making new vineyards on their lands. The name " vine- 
yard '" was often retained long after the monks who planted it 
had passed away. Thus " Vineyard," near Gloucester, de- 
scribed in Camden's Britannia as the seat of the Bridgemans, 
" on a hillet " to the west of the town, was once the vineyard 
belonging to the Abbots of Gloucester.^ Gloucestershire was 
famous for its vines, which, wrote William of Malmesbury in 
the twelfth century, are " more plentiful in crops, and more 
pleasant in flavour than any in England "; for the wines do not 
" offend the mouth with sharpness, since they do not yield to the 
French in sweetness."^ Another survival is the "Vine Street " in 
towns, as in London, Grantham, Peterborough, and many others. 
Perhaps, at the latter place, the name marks the site of the 
vineyards planted by Abbot Martin early in the twelfth century. 

' In Kent, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Gloucester, Berkshire, 
Hertford, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, etc. 

A General Introduction to Domesday Book, by Sir Henry Ellis, 1816, 

P-37- 

^ Gough's Camden, vol. i., p. 392, ed. 1806. 
2 De Gestis Pontif, Book IV. 



MONASTIC GARDENING 23 

At Hereford/ sloping to the south-west, is the spot known 
as the " Vinefields," where the terraces, laid out for the vines, 
can still be distinguished. The accounts of the Diocese of 
Hereford when the See was vacant by the death of Louis de 
Chorlton, in 1369, and the lands were in the hands of the King 
(Edward III.) until the next appointment, show the existence 
of a vineyard within the Manor of Ledesbury ; while in a similar 
account for the year 1536-7,^ although the costs of the garden 
are entered, there is no mention of a vineyard ; and at another 
Manor on the same roll (Prestbury), the " herbage of the pasture 
called Vyneyarde " was sold, thus proving the former existence 
of vines on the spot, and showing how gradually they died out. 
But with our climate, what strikes one as more wonderful than 
their passing away is that they were, at one time, so numerous 
throughout England. Even as far north as Cheshire, in the 
twelfth century, although there does not appear to have been 
any actual vineyard, the vine was not unknown, for Reginald 
of Durham notices, at Lixtune in Cheshire, a little church 
built of timber with vines climbing over it.^ 

It is difficult to realize the appearance of Ely in the eleventh 
century, in the days " when Cnut the King came sailing by," as 
it rose from out the dreary and undrained fen-land. Then the 
sunny slopes around its cloisters were so thickly planted with 
vineyards, tended by those monks who sang so merrily, that the 
Normans gave it the name of the " Isle des Vignes." 

Another old rhyme thus celebrates these vines : 

" Quatuor sunt Eliae : Lanterna, Capella Mariae, 
Et Molendinura, nee non claus Vinea vinum." 

" Englished " thus by Austin, in 1653 : 

" Foure things of Elie towne, much spoken are. 
The Leaden Lanthorn, Marie's chappell rare. 
The mighty Milhill in the Minster field, 
And fruitful vineyards which sweet wine do yeeld."* 

^ Ministers' Accounts, B. 1138, No. 4. Bishops* Temporalities, 
Hereford Diocese (Record Ofl&ce). 

2 Exchequer Q. R., Hereford Diocese, No. 133 (R.O.). 

^ Regin. Dunelm de B. Ctithberti virhitibus, Surtees Soc, 1835, p. 307. 

* Ralph Austin, A Treatise on Fruit Trees, 1653. 



24 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Ely long continued to be famous for its grapes. From 
time to time, when the manors were in the King's hands, during 
some interregnum caused by the death of the Bishop, the 
papers relative to the administration of the lands give evidence 
of the vineyards as well as of the orchards and gardens belong- 
ing to the See, from which a profit was derived. ■"• The chief 
entries refer to the " herbage of the garden," " apples," 
" pears," and nuts sold, also hemp and reeds. The farm of the 
" rosery " often occurs, but the word is disappointing ; and it 
stands for " roseria," " rosar," or bed for reeds or rushes, at 
places in the Fens.^ 

In the " Bailiwick of Cambridge, except the island," and 
at Somersham Manor, there were vineyards which yielded 
grapes, but the principal one was at Ely itself. In 1298 as 
much as twenty-seven gallons of verjuice, " viridi succo," 
from the grapes, were sold ; and the next year, twenty-one 
gallons. 

The entry runs thus : 

" And of logs. 8d. of pasture and herbage sold in the vine- 
yard and elsewhere in divers places in the summer. And of 
25s. 3d. of fruit in two gardens and the vineyard, besides 
the grapes, with 21 gallons of verjuice sold. And of ^fio for 
9I butts of wine sold, of the remainder of the preceding 
year." 

From another passage in 1302 it appears that cherries were 
the other fruit, besides the grapes, which grew in the vineyard,^ 
and also we find in the same year the charges for the livery 

^ Exchequer Q. R., Bishops' Temporalities, |-i ; and Ministers' 
Accounts, ~~ (Record Ofi&ce). 

^ " Litilport 40s. of yearly rent of the ' Roseria ' at the Annuncia- 
tion," A.D. 1302. Du Cange Glossarium " Roseria " =French Roseau = 
Arundo, Juncus. The old French word was rosiere — " lieu rempli de 
roseaux." The following are examples of the entries of most of the 
manors : 

1286. Downham. 9s. of apples and nuts sold there. 

1286. Littlelburi. 7s. 2d. of apples and pears sold there during the 

same time. 
1286. Derham. 15s. of apples sold there. 

1298. Feltevelle. 55s. 9d. of herbage and fruit of the garden and 
pasture sold. 
^ " Of 2od. from cherries in the vineyard sold." 



MONASTIC GARDENING 25 

of the vine-dresser and the labourer under him, which was paid 
for in corn.^ 

The Bishops of Ely also had a vineyard attached to the 
garden of " Ely Place," their house in Holborn, the site of 
which the present " Vine Street " commemorates. The 
earhest records of these gardens date from the reign of 
Edward III., and they are preserved at Ely. They are most 
interesting from the names of streets and houses in London 
mentioned in them, some with gardens attached,^ for which 
rent was paid to the Bishop. But only a few of the earhest 
ones contain any details of the garden or vineyard, for from 
the year 1379-80 to 1480-81 they were let at the yearly sum 
of 60s. The rent of the garden alone was 20s. The accounts 
until the year 1419 are preserved at Ely ; the continuation 
from 1423 to 1483 are in the Record Office.^ Among the latter 
in the time of Bishop John Morton, 20 to 21 Edward IV., 
the garden is at last again in the Bishop's own hands ; the entry 
states that there is no rent, " quod occupatur ad visum domini 
proprium hoc anno." 

The following is a translation of the earliest of the rolls at 
Ely:^ 

Account of Adam Vynour, gardener (" ortolani ") of the Lord Bishop 
of Ely, in his Manor of Holbourne, and collector of the rents, belonging 
to the said manor, from Michaelmas in the 46th to 7th June in the 47th 
year of Edward III. (1372-3). (Then follow rents of assize, and pay- 
ments for the farm of shops, 77s. 6d.) 

Issues of the Garden — And of i6s. for onions and garlick sold. — And 
of 9s. 2d. for herbs, " lekes," parsley, and herbage sold. — And 
of 48s. 6d. for pasture in " le gras3erd " sold, and of 5s. 4d. 
for beans in the husks sold, sum, 79s., also £6 6s. 8d. from Sir 
Thomas Wylton, sum total of receipts, £1^ 3s. 2d. 

Expenses — Rents repaid to various churches, &c. 

^ March 20 to July 18 — 30th Edward I. " Wheat and barley — In the 
livery of one ' vinitor ' during the same time, 2 qrs. i bus., he taking 
I quarter for 8 weeks. In the livery of his ' garcio ' during the same 
time 6 J bushels i peck taking i quarter for 20 weeks." 
^ 1312. " In lez railes in gardino apud Faryndonesin." 
^ Ministers' Accounts, Bishops' Temporalities, -y^- 
* Transcribed and translated from the original MSS. among the 
muniments of Ely Cathedral. 



26 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Costs of the Vineyard and Curtilage and in divers labourers and women 
for digging the vines and curtilage, and also for cleansing and 
pulling up weeds in the curtilage, as appears by the parcels 
sewn to this account, 69s. ijd., and in thorns bought, viz. 
4 cartloads of thorns for making the hedges round the great 

f garden, 6s. 8d., and in the stipends of 2 men making 6 score 

and I perches of hedges round the same garden, 35s. sjd., by 
the perch, ^^d. 11 is. id. 

Costs of repairs, &c. : 

Wages of the Bailiff — In the wages of the accountant for 35 weeks and 
6 days, 62s. gd., taking by the day, 3d. In the wages of i boy 
digging in the vineyard, and in the curtilage from the last 
day of December until 17th day of April, in the feast of 
Easter, for 106 days, 17s. 8d., taking by the day, 2d. In the 
stipend of the same boy for the same time, 5s. And in the 
stipend of the accountant for the half-year, 13s. 4d. — Sum, 
;^i4 i8s. gd. 

Small Expenses — Paid to the Rector of the Church of St. Andrew, in 
Holbourne for the tithe of the pasture of the great garden, 
4$. lod. Sum of all the expenses, £1^ 12s. 6Jd. 
Afterwards there is allowed to the same [accountant] 21s. 6Jd., 
which he paid to Sir Walter de Aldebury, Prebendary of the 
Prebend of Holbourne, for the rent of the vineyard of the 
Prior of Ely for 6 years and for one quarter of a year last past, 
viz. 3s. 5jd. by the year, viz. for the whole time during which 
' the Lord Bishop held the said vineyard of the Prior at farm, 
and there is allowed to the same gs. 4d. for his stipend from 
the day of the death of the Lord until the feast of Michael for 
16 weeks taking by the week 7d. for the custody of the said 
vineyards and the pasture aforesaid. — And so the sum of both 
surpluses is 60s. 3jd., which he received of Sir Roger Beau- 
champ. — And so he departed content. 
(On the dorse) Verjuice — The same answers for 30 gallons of ver- 
juice of the issues of the vineyard — sum, 30 gallons — thereof 
in tithe 3 gallons — And for one peck of parsley seed (" seminis 
petrosilli "), and for one quart hyssop (" ysop ") seed — And 
for I quart savory (" savori ") seed, and for i quart leek 
(" lekes ") seed. 

Dead Stock — There remain there two iron spades (" vange ferree "), 
I rake (" tribul "), 4 hoes (" howes "), and i lamp (" lucerna "), 
I " shave," i axe (" bolex "), i box for candles, i box for 
spices, the latter broken. 

The Bishop of Ely's Holbourne vineyard did not stand 
alone in that locality. Hard by was another belonging to the 
Earl of Lincoln, from which about fifty gallons of verjuice were 



MONASTIC GARDENING 27 

sold in one year (1295-6).^ A little farther on, in Smithfield, 
a vineyard was planted by Geoffrey, Earl of Essex, on the 
land belonging to the " Canons of Trinity Church, London," 
which was restored to that body in 1137.^ 

It would be tedious to enumerate all the vineyards belonging 
to monastic houses which are known to have existed, and of 
which there is merely the name or some shght record surviving, 
as at Canterbury, Beaulieu, Ramsey, Abingdon, Spalding, Bury 
St. Edmunds, and many others.^ Enough has been told to 
show how important an item the vineyard was in the gardener's 
department. His cares, however, did not quite end there, as 
the moat and the ponds were also under his charge. At 
Norwich the gardener's office bore the expense of cleaning the 
ditches which divided the various gardens, the Prior's from 
the chief garden, and so on,"* At Abingdon also he defrayed 
the cost of cleaning out the moat, and both there and at 
Ramsey the gardener purchased nets and baskets for catching 
the fish in the moats and ponds.'' 

To get at the details of the management of monastic gardens, 
we have to go so constantly to the accounts of the office, and 
to look so entirely at the business side of the question, that one 
is apt to forget the other aspect — namely, the pleasure they 

^ Duchy of Lancaster Account, Bundle i. No. i. 

2 " To the Canons of the Holy Trinity, London, for the soul of K. 
Henry, and for his own welfare and that of JMatilda the Queen his 
consort, and of Eustace his son and his other children, the land of 
Smethefelde which Earl Geoffrey had taken for making his vineyard, 
to hold the said land as K. Henry granted it to them. Witness, 
M[atilda] the Queen " (Charter, Roll 3, Richard II.. m. 3, Ancient 
Deeds Record Office, A6683). 

Syllabus of Rymer's Fcedera, vol. i., p. 3. 

2 The total cost of the vintage one year at Abingdon was 4s. 4d. In 
1388-9 the profits from the vineyard were : " from wine, 13s. 4d., from 
grapes, 20s. ojd., from verjuice, 2s., from vines, 4d." {Accounts of 
Abingdon Abbey, by R. E. G. Kirk). 

* 1483-4. " For cleaning the great ditch that goes round the garden 
with the small ditch which is next the ' scaccarium ' ( —exchequer) of the 
gardener, i8d." (There is an entry, 1516, " for making a window of 
glass in the ' scaccarium,' 2od.") 

^ Abingdon, 1450-1 : "Et in welez emptis pro piscibus capiendis in 
fossato conventus 4s. lod. et in factura unius tronke pro piscibus custo- 
diendis 3d." 



28 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

afforded. But, alas ! there are few gardens in existence which 
can give any idea of what these were really like. A thick 
hedge or a fish-pond is generally the only survival. The wall 
enclosing a corner of the garden at Ashridge is part of the old 
cloister, and near it there is also a fine yew hedge surrounding 
another small piece of garden. These, if not actually the same 
as in the days when the place was a monastery, are on the 
same lines, and have been kept as gardens ever since the days 
when the monks enjoyed the solitude of the cloister. In like 
manner here and there throughout the country some slight 
but pleasing trace of the old monastic garden has been re- 
tained. The times we have been considering were periods of 
constant strife, when the cloister was the only place in which 
quiet and retirement could be found, and to those who sought 
refuge within its walls, how dear must those peaceful hours in 
their gardens have been ! Perhaps some inmate of Sopwell 
(a cell of St. Albans) was too fond of early morning or late 
evening strolls in the garden, for Abbot Michael (about 1338) 
made the rule that in winter " the garden-door be not opened 
(for walking) before the hour of prime, or first hour of devotion : 
— and in summer that the garden and the parlour doors 
be not opened until the hour of none (? nine) in the morning : — 
and to be always shut when the corfue rings." ^ 

Even the warlike Hospitaller Orders, the Templars, and 
Knights of St. John, contributed something towards the im- 
provement of Horticulture.^ In their wanderings in the East 
during the Crusades, they may have remembered some garden 
in England, and brought back plants for it, as, for example, 
the splendid Oriental plane at Ribston, the planting of which 
tradition attributes to the Templars. The surveys of the 
manors all over the kingdom belonging to these Orders show 
the large number of gardens of which they were possessed. 
At the Chancery of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in 
England, in Clerkenwell, there was a garden in the time of 
Prior Philip de Thame (in 1338) which was still existing in 

^ Rev. Peter Newcome, History of St. Albans, p. 468. 

2 The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem and the Templars, also the 
Cistercians, were exempted from payment of the tithe of the gardens 
(Fuller, Church History) . 




ASHRIDGE, SHOWING PART OF THE OLD CLOISTER WALL. 



To face page 28. 



MONASTIC GARDENING 29 

the reign of Henry VI I./ and the Hospitallers had also a 
house with gardens attached at Hampton, on the site of the 
present gardens of Hampton Court. In many ways through 
those troublous times the monastic orders kept alive the 
science of Horticulture, and spread the knowledge of it to those 
around them. Thus by practising, as well as by preaching, 
they showed by their useful lives that " to labour was to 
pray." 

^ Close Roll, Henry VII., a.d. i486. 



CHAPTER II 

THIRTEENTH CENTURY 

" The rose rayle//j hire rode 
The leues on ihe lyhte wode 
Waxen al with wille 
The mone mandelh hire bleo 
The lilie is lossom to seo 
The fenyl and the fille." 

Springtime, MS., c. 1300. 

DURING the years which succeeded the Norman Conquest, 
the country was constantly plunged in wars abroad and 
troubles at home. There could be little thought of the quiet 
pleasures of a garden while William I. and his sons ruled the 
conquered English with a rod of iron ; while Stephen was 
fighting for the crown against " the Empress Maud " ; while 
men's minds were occupied by Crusades to the Holy Land ; 
or while the Constitution of England was being slowly built 
up, and her Uberties gradually secured by bloodshed and 
ceaseless struggles. 

It was necessary, in these troublous times, for security of 
life and property, to live in as inaccessible a position as possible. 
Castles were built on the tops of hills, or protection was sought 
by placing the dwelling behind some river or marsh, when 
no high ground or escarpments of steep rocks afforded a 
suitable defence. This was the opposite course from that 
pursued by the monks, who as a rule chose a fertile valley 
in which to place their cloister, and plant their orchards, 
gardens, and vineyards. There was no room for much garden 
within the glacis of a feudal castle, and as it was not safe for 
any of the inmates to venture beyond, it was scarcely worth 
while making any garden or orchard outside, merely to see it 

30 



THIRTEENTH CENTURY 31 

plundered by some turbulent neighbour. But, in spite of all 
these disadvantages, some attempt at cultivation of fruit was 
not unfrequently made. 

At Carlisle there must have been gardens round the town, 
and outside the castle walls, if the old rhyming Chronicle of 
the Wars in 1173 and 1174, between Henry II. and William 
the Lion, of Scotland, is to be believed. The supposed author, 
Jordan Fantosme, describes the siege of the Castle of Carlisle. 
The translation of one verse runs thus : ^ 

" They did not lose within, I assure you I do not he. 
As much as amounted to a silver denier. 
But they lost their fields, with all their corn 
[And] their gardens [were] ravaged by those bad people, 
And he who could not do any more injury took it into his head 
To bark the apple trees ; — it was bad vengeance."^ 

Scattered throughout the Pipe Rolls 'and Exchequer Rolls 
and Liberate Rolls there are to be found a few entries which 
indicate some of the royal gardens in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries. In 1158-9 payments appear to the King's orchard- 
man, " Henricus Arborarii," in London, and to the vine- 
dressers at Windsor and elsewhere.^ In 1259, Henry III. 
made extensive alterations at the Palace of Westminster, and 
among payments to workmen and carpenters and others* there 
are several to labourers for " levelUng the area of the garden 
with a roller." 

In the reign of Edward I. further entries occur for keeping 
the garden, and for dressing the vines in the vineyard at 
Westminster, and of payment of the daily wage of 2|d, to 
" Roger le Herberur," " formerly servant to the Lord the King 
Henry, the King's father." In 1276-7 as much as £97 17s. 7|d. 

^ Surtees Society, 1840, p. 77. 

2 A curious confirmation of the gardens at Carlisle even earlier, 1131, 
is in the Pipe Roll, 31st Henry I. (printed ed., p. 141) : 

Receipt from Crown lands — " William Fitz Baldwin renders ac 
count of 30S. of old farm of the king's garden of Carlisle. He 
delivered [the same] into the Treasury — And he is quit. And 
the same William owes 30s. of the farm of the same garden of 
this year past." 

3 Pipe Roll Society, vol. i., 1884. 

* Devon Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, 1837. 



^ A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

was paid by the King to Master Robert de Beverley, keeper 
of the King's woods, " for divers necessary things ... to make 
mews at Charing, and Hkewise to make the King's kitchen- 
garden there." Henry III.'s chief garden was at Woodstock, 
but he was not the originator of it, as there had been a garden 
there in the time of the second Henry. In it was the laby- 
rinth which concealed the " Bower," made famous by the tragic 
fate of the " Fair Rosamond." A halo of romance and mystery 
hangs round this hiding-place, but in reahty labyrinths were 
by no means uncommon. There is evidence of the existence 
of labyrinths in very early times, and they, presumably, 
suggested the maze of more modem date. The first labyrinths 
were winding paths cut in the ground, and the survival of 
some is still traceable in several places in England. Of these, 
Saffron Walden, with its encircling ditch, is a most striking 
example. Camden describes one existing in his time in 
Dorsetshire, which went by the name of Troy Town or Julian's 
Bower. -^ 

In 1250, Henry III. improved the gardens at Woodstock for 
his queen. Among certain works which he commanded the 
Bailiff of Woodstock to perform were the following : "To 
make round about the garden of our Queen two walls, good 
and high, so that no one may be able to enter, with a becoming 
and honourable herbary near our fish-pond, in which the same 
Queen may be able to amuse herself ; — and with a certain gate 
from the herbary which is next the chapel of Edward our 
son, into the aforesaid garden."^ Again, on August 19, 
1252, the order was given to turf the " great herbarium."^ 
The word " herbarium " may simply mean a place where herbs 
were grown, but in this case it seems as if it were used for 
" herber," the Old EngHsh word for arbour, which only means 
a shelter or " harbour." 

The same year, among other works at Clarendon, the Queen's 
" herbarium " was to be " remade and amended."^ This 

^ Camden's Britannia, by Gough, 1806, vol. i., p. 73. 

" Liberate Roll, 34 Hen. III., m. 6 — Dated at Wodestok, 20 June, 
" cum herbario decent! et honesto prope vivarium nostrum, in quo ipsa 
Regina possit spaciari." 

3 Ibid., 36 Hen. III., m. 4. 

* 76tc?., 36 Hen. III., July 9, m. 6. 



THIRTEENTH CENTURY S3 

looks as if it was what is usually understood by an arbour, a 
covered-in place. There are many descriptions of such arbours 
in the fourteenth century, and it was the custom to turf them. 
The herbarium may, however, have been a small private garden, 
planted with herbs, with high thick hedges. The garden at 
Clarendon was enclosed by a pahng,^ while those of Windsor^ 
and Kennington^ were enclosed by a ditch. In 1260 more 
alterations were carried out in the garden outside Windsor 
Castle ; the gardener's house was moved, and a further wall 
built. During many successive reigns this garden at Windsor 
was kept up, and from time to time improved, and the orchard 
or vineyard was extended. Entries of the wages paid to the 
gardener and the vine-dresser occur in many of the household 
accounts preserved in the Record Office. The gardener re- 
ceived IOCS, a year, the labourers 2|d. a day. It is curious 
to note that the produce of these gardens was sold, and it 
seems to have been the exception when all the fruit was con- 
sumed by the King's household. In 1332 there is the following 
entry among the receipts : " 6s. 6d. received for the fruits and 
herbage of the King's garden outside the Castle" ;^ and other 
like entries occur. In " the account of Walter Hungerford, 
Knight, Steward of the Household of King Henry V. and 
Constable of the Castle of Wyndsore "^ (1419-1422), " for any 
issues arising from fruits of the garden and vines of the King 
there in the two second years {sic) in the time of this account, 
he does not answer, for that the fruits of the said garden were 
delivered to the Household of the Lord the King there, and 
the grapes of the vines there were eaten by the Ladies and 
others of the King's Household then being there, so that the 
same Constable had not and could not have any profit thereof, 
as he says upon his oath." 

Besides the royal gardens at Westminster, Charing, and 
the Tower, there were others near the houses of the great 
nobles, and smaller gardens belonging to the citizens around 
London. A description of the town by FitzStephen in his 
Life of Thomas a Becket, whose contemporary he was, gives 

^ Liberate Roll, 37 lien. III., m. 13. ^ jfjid^^ 37 Hen. III., m. 17. 

'^ Ibid. * Ministers' Accounts, Bundle 753, No. 9. 

^ Ibid., Bundle 755, No. 10. 

3 



34 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

a glimpse of these. The passage (translated) runs thus : " On 
all sides outside the houses of the citizens who dwell in the 
suburbs, there are adjoining gardens planted with trees both 
spacious and pleasing to the sight." The only other large 
garden near London, not belonging to a religious house, of 
which there is any record, is that of Henry de Lacy, Earl of 
Lincoln, in Holbourne. There is an account of all the manors 
held by the Earl in the year 1295-96.^ At all the places, lists 
occur of the produce sold, such as hemp, corn, beans, pulse, etc., 
but Holbourne appears to be the only garden of sufficient size 
to allow of the sale of any of its produce. At " Grante sete 
Manor," 7s. 4d. was paid for cutting and cultivating the vines, 
but at most of the other large manors, such as Thoresby and 
Pontefract, there is no mention of a garden at all. The 
Holbourne accounts are most interesting, and show the wages 
paid to the gardener and labourers, the number of gallons of ver- 
juice made from the vines, and the large quantities of pears and 
apples sold. Other varieties, probably more choice than those 
grown in the garden, were purchased and sent to the Earl, and 
slips of apples and pears were brought to replenish the garden. 

Accounts of the Possessions of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, 23 and 
24 Edward I., Holburne ; William de Donyncton, Serjeant, renders his 
account at Holburne on the day of Saint Clement the Pope in the 25th 
year of the reign of King Edward before the same [Sir William de Nony] 
and for the same time [Michaelmas 23 to Michaelmas 24 Edw. I.]. 

Of /g for pears, apples, and great nuts of the garden sold, the tithe being 
deducted. Of 2S. 3d. for cherries of the garden sold, the tithe 
being deducted. Of 8s. gfd. for herbs and " Jeritis " of the 
garden sold, the tithe being deducted. Of 6s. for beans of 
the garden sold, the tithe being deducted. Of 2o|d. for ver- 
juice " in fobis," the tithe being deducted. Of 12s. 3d. for 
49 gallons of verjuice of issue, the tithe being deducted. Of 
3s. 2d. for roses sold, the tithe being deducted. Of 4s. 6d. for 
herbage of the garden, the tithe being deducted. Of 2S. 3d. 
for hemp of the garden, the tithe being deducted. Of 4s. i|d. 
for onions and garlick sold, the tithe being deducted. Of 
2S. 6d. for little plants (plancettis or plantettis ?) of the vines 
sold. (There are also receipts for deer sold.) 

^ This very fine large roll, \vhich consists of several sheets nearly 
3 feet long, and about 15 inches wide, is preserved at the Record Office, 
Duchy of Lancaster Ministers' Accounts, Bundle i. No. i. 



THIRTEENTH CENTURY 35 

Expenses — 52s. 2d. in the wages and robe of the gardener by the year. 
And 60s. 8d. in the wages of the Serjeant by the year. And los. 
in the robe of the same. And 43s. 8d. paid to the Warden of 
the Gaol of Flet, for the yearly farm due to him. And 39s. 8|d . 
in the stipends of divers [men] working in the garden, as well 
for the vines as for herbs, leeks, and other curtilages [and] 
for carrying and spreading dung. And 5s. yd. in two bushels 
of beans [and] seed of hemp, onions, and garlic bought for 
planting. And 22d. in the stipend[s] of [men] helping to 
make verjuice with salt bought for the same. And 3s. 2jd. 
" in 2 insitis (== grafts) de Rule, 2 de Martin, 5 de Caloel, et 
3 de pesse pucele," bought for planting. And 2s. 6d. in 
mending the paling of the garden. And 44s. 4^d. in one " kay" 
newly made for the support of the paling from the stable to 
the north head of the greater ditch in the garden. And 
8s. ojd. in small fish, small frogs, and eels bought for the 
sustenance of the pikes {luporum aquaticorum). 27s. in 100 
"caloels," 100 " pesse puceles," 200 "Rules," 300 " Martyns," 
[and] 300 " quoynz," bought and sent to the Earl at Ambr' 
(Amesbury, Wilts ?) with the carriage of the same. . . . 
17s. ojd. in 1500 onions [and] 1^ load of garlic bought and sent 
to Camford : and iis. in the carriage of the same. 

IVIany of the pears mentioned in tliis and otlier accounts 
appear to be of French origin. The " caloel " occurs in other 
places as " cailloel " for " caillou," a pebble, so called, let us 
hope, from its shape and not from its hardness. The " pesse," 
or " passe pucelle," is also evidently French. The " S. Rule " 
pear was probably named after St. Regolo, or Rule, who 
was Bishop of Aries, and first Bishop of Serdis. Rochelle, 
in France, was celebrated for its pears, and one year the 
Sheriffs of London imported some from thence to present to 
Henry III. Further information regarding these varieties of 
pears, and the prices paid for them, is to be gained from some 
other most interesting documents preserved in the Record Office. 
These papers are bills for the fruit bought for Henry III. and 
Edward I. at different times. The earhest is probably for 
the year 1223 ; the beginning of the document is missing, but 
it is dated in the seventh year of some King unnamed. From 
the internal evidence afforded by the names of places and 
dates, it appears that Henry III. is the King. He was still a 
minor, and his movements during the seventh year of his reign 
are uncertain, but the itineraries of all the other possible Kings 

3—2 



36 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

in their seventh year are known, and do not correspond with 
the dates in this document. The first entry is for April 20th, 
at " Pois," when six hundred apples, costing 12s., one hundred 
pears of " S. Rule," for los,, and five hundred nuts for 2s., were 
brought from Paris. Henry was journeying towards England, 
and at each place, " Arenes," " Abeville," " Gart," and 
" Bolone," he was suppHed with large quantities of fruit from 
Paris daily. On April 27th he was at Dover, and the apples, 
pears, and nuts were still supphed daily until he reached 
London.^ From a similar document for the year 1292-93, of 
which the following are extracts, the names of several other 
sorts of pears can be gathered :^ 

Memorandum that John the Yeoman of Nicholas the Fruiterer on 
Tuesday next before the feast of All [Saints ?] led a certain 
horse-load of fruit from Cambhus, where the ship ... to the 
Castle of Berwyk. First goo " Calluewell " pears, price of 
the hundred 4s. [and with] the same load 500 " pas pucell," 
price of the hundred 2s. In paner (paniers ?) and cords 8d. 
In the hire of the horse and expenses of the same and of one 
man for four days 3s. 6d. Also on Wednesday next before the 
feast of St. Edmund the king from the town of BerAvyk to [the 
Castle] 700 Regul' pears, price of the hundred 3s. — also 300 
costard apples, price of the hundred i2d. . . . In porterage Jd. 

Sent to the Lord the King at Bernwell, on Monday next after Palm 
Sunday, 800 and a half of Regul' pears, price of the hundred 
lod. also 900 apples, price of the hundred 3d. Also 1200 
^! " Chasteyns " [price] of the hundred 2d. In paniers and 

cords 6d. In the hire of one horse and expenses of the same, 
and of one groom going and returning 2s. id. sum 13s. iid. 
proved. . . . 

Sent to the Lord the King by Stephen Mewe on Friday after the 
Lord's Epiphany, 1700 Regul' pears, price of the hundred lod. 
L Also 1400 and a-half of " Martin " pears, price of the hundred 

8d. Also 700, price of the hundred 3d. . . . 

Sent to the Lord the King in the North parts, 4500 " dieyes " (or 
dreyes ?) pears, price of the hundred 3d. also 1200 " soreli " 
pears. . . . 

Sent to the Lord the King at York . . . 6000 " gold knopes " pears, 
price of the hundred 2d. also 5000 " Chyrfoll " pears. . . . 

^ " Item le VIme iour de May a la Tour de Londres pour ii c. de 
poumes ii s. esterlins et pour i c. de poires ii s. esterlins et pour iii c. de 
nois vi d. esterlins " (Exchequer Q. R., Miscellanea, '^-). 

^ Extract from Exchequer, Treasury of the Receipt Miscellanea, ||^, 
20-21 Edward I. 



THIRTEENTH CENTURY 37 

The fruit was supplied to Edward I. at Newcastle, York, 
Pontefract, Berwick, and various places in the North. This 
date was the commencement of the wars with Scotland, at the 
time of Bruce and Baliol, when Edward held his Parliament 
at Newcastle, and then at Berwick. It is curious to think 
that such great events should be the means of revealing the 
names of the best-known pears of the period. There are still 
most of the S. Rule, or " Regul pears," as they are written in 
this account, and they are bought in quantities, as in the 
earher bills, the cost being usually 3s. per hundred, but some- 
times only lod. for the same amount. The pears which come 
next after the " Regul," in the frequency of the entries and 
quantities, are the " Calluewell," or " Calwell," and the " pas 
pucell," or " pase pucell," and " Martins " are also mentioned, 
all these four sorts being also found in the Earl of Lincoln's 
accounts, the prices varying from 4s. to 8d. per hundred. 
Besides these, there occur " Dieyes " (or " dreyes "), " sorell," 
" chyrfoll," and " gold knopes " pears — also apples, quinces, 
called " coynes," chestnuts, " chasteynes,"^ and " great nuts." 
The only kind of apple specially noticed is the Costard. The 
name of this variety, which was the most popular of apples for 
many centuries, has been preserved in the word " coster- 
monger," originally a seller of this fruit. At Oxford, in 1296, 
the Costard apple was sold for is, per hundred, and the price 
of twenty-nine Costard apple-trees, in 1325, was 3s. ^ It is 
spoken of by early writers as a distinct fruit, in the same way 
as Wardens and pears. Grosseteste mentions them as " apples 
and Costards."^ Another popular variety of apple was the 
Pearmain. At an early date we find it being used for cider. 
In the sixth year of King John a certain Robert de Evermere 
held the lordship of Runham in the Hundrtc ' East Flegg, 
in Norfolk, by petty serjeanty, by the payment of two hundred 
Pearmains and four hogsheads (modios) of wine, made of Pear- 
mains, into the Exchequer, on the feast of St. Michael yearly.'* 

^ Pipe Roll (printed 1884, vol. i.), 5 Henry II., 3s. for chestnuts 
(" castanear ") sent to the Queen at Salisbury. 

2 Thorold Rogers, History of Agricultural Prices. 

^ Sloane MS. 686. " Tretyse off Housbandry that Mayster Groshede 
made." 

* Blomefield, Hist, of Norfolk, vol. v., p. 1378, ed. 1775. 



38 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

These were still being paid annually in the ninth year 
of Edward II. One other kind of pear, the " Janettar," 
is noted in one of the Wardrobe accounts in the thirty-sixth 
year of the reign of Henry III., as being bought with 
" sorells " and " cailloels " from " John the Fruiterer of 
London."^ 

Besides these fruits, which appear to have been common, 
there were a few choicer sorts, such as cherries, mulberries, 
medlars, and even peaches. If proof were needed that this 
latter fruit was to be had in England, we have it in the fact 
that King John, at Newark, in the midst of his despair and 
disappointment, hastened his end by a surfeit of peaches and 
ale.^ Figs were also no doubt grown in the warmer places, as 
the fig-tree was known in Saxon times, though they are not 
frequently mentioned. Tradition attributes the planting of 
the large tree in the fig-gardens at West Tarring, near Worthing, 
to Thomas a Becket. 

The various accounts which have been quoted, although 
tedious from their sameness, are nearly the only trustworthy 
sources of information about the fruits and gardens of this 
period. To supply such large quantities of fruit, there must 
have been extensive orchards. It is impossible to imagine that 
the fruiterer to the King procured the thousands of apples and 
pears required for his royal master from France, although a 
few may have come from abroad. By the early part of the 
fourteenth century, many fine and old-established gardens and 
orchards must have existed in this country, and were being 
cultivated, not by the religious orders only, but under many 
secular owners of land. Gardens were being made around the 
various colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, then coming into 
existence. Trinity Hall, Cambridge, had a good garden, with 
vines and " herbaria," within a short time of its foundation, 
and Peterhouse a few years earlier. The gardens round 
London have already been noticed ; something further about 
them might be gained by searching old leases. The following 
sample gives some idea of the number of gardens in one part of 

^ Exchequer Q. R., Ancient Miscell., Wardrobe and Household 
Account, ■^-^. R. O. 

^ Chronicle of Roger of Wendover. 




GARDEN IN A TOWN. 

From a French MS., late fifteenth century. 



To face page 3S 



THIRTEENTH CENTURY 39 

London. It is a lease, dated 1375/ for "A garden situate in 
Tower Ward, near the city wall, which John Seoh lately held : 
being between the garden which Geoffrey Puppe holds on the 
North side, and the garden which William Lambourne holds on 
the South." There is no better proof of the great increase in 
the culture of fruits and vegetables than a discussion which 
took place between the gardeners in and near London and the 
Lord Mayor with regard to the locality in which they were 
allowed to sell the produce of their gardens. 

It appears that for many years previous to 1345 the gardeners 
of the Earls, Barons, Bishops, and citizens of London were 
accustomed to sell their " pulse, cherries, vegetables, and other 
wares to their trade pertaining," on a piece of ground " opposite 
to the church of S. Austin near the gate of S. Paul's church- 
yard." By 1345, however, this fruit and vegetable market had 
grown to such an extent, and had become so crowded, as to 
hinder " persons passing both on foot and on horseback," and 
the " scurrility, clamour, and nuisance of the gardeners and 
their servants " had become so obnoxious " to the people 
dwelling in the houses of reputable persons there," and " such 
a nuisance to the priests who are singing Matins and Mass in 
the church of S. Austin, and to others, both clerks and laymen, 
in prayers and orisons there serving God," that the Mayor and 
Aldermen were petitioned to interfere, and to remove the 
market to some more suitable place. The result of this peti- 
tion was a meeting of the Mayor and Aldermen, and an order 
" given to the said gardeners and their servants, that they 
should no longer expose their wares aforesaid, for sale in that 
place, on peril which awaits the same." But the gardeners 
were not to be so easily defeated. They, in their turn, peti- 
tioned the Mayor to reverse his sentence, and their petition 
runs thus : " Unto the Mayor of London, shew and pray the 
gardeners of the Earls, Barons, and Bishops, and of the citizens 
of the same city, may it please you, sire, seeing that you are 
the chief guardian of the said city, and of the ancient usages 
therein established, to suffer and to, maintain that the said 
gardeners may stand in peace in the same place where they 
have been wont in times of old, in front of the church of 
1 Letter Book, H. F. XIII., 49 Ed. III. 



40 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

S. Austin, at the side of the gate of S. Paul's churchyard, in 
London, there to sell the garden produce of their said masters, 
and make their profits as heretofore they have been wont to 
do, seeing that they have heretofore been in the said place un- 
molested, and that as they assert they cannot serve the com- 
monalty, nor yet their masters, as they were wont to do. As 
to which they pray for redress." But the Mayor would not 
give way at first, though it appears that he afterwards held 
" a conference between his Aldermen," at which it was agreed 
that " all the gardeners of the city, as well aliens as freemen, 
who sell their pulse, cherries, vegetables, and other wares afore- 
said in the city, should have as their place the space between 
the south gate of the churchyard of S. Austin's, and the garden 
wall of the Friars Preachers at Baynard's Castle, in the same 
city, that so they should sell their wares aforesaid in the place 
by the said Mayor and Aldermen thus appointed for them, 
and nowhere else."-^ 

^ Letter Book F., fol. cxi, of the Guildhall, and Riley's Memorials of 
London Life. 



CHAPTER III 
FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 

" And in the gardin at the sonne uprist 
She walketh up and down wher as hire hst 
She gathereth floures, party whyte and reede 
To make a sotil gerland for hire heede." 

Chaucer : Knight's Tale. 

GREAT changes were taking place in England during the 
latter half of the fourteenth and beginning of the following 
century. Trades and industries increased, and in like manner 
horticulture revived. During the years which had passed 
since the Norman Conquest, the conquerors and conquered had 
become welded into one nation, and this had not been effected 
peacefully. Now a period opens when the battles were being 
fought on foreign soil, while the nation was enjoying compara- 
tive peace at home. In the country itself, the poorer sections 
of the community were gradually asserting their rights against 
the lords of the soil. There was a class growing up, of farmers 
who farmed lands, merely paying some yearly tribute in service 
or in kind to their overlord. Round these small farms and 
manors, gardens and orchards were planted, and thus it can be 
seen how such movements would affect the progress of gardening. 
From incidental references in writings of the time it appears 
that the poorer classes lived chiefly on vegetables, as the fol- 
lowing quotations from Langland serve to show : 

" Alle the pore peple pesecoddes fetten^ 
Benes and baken apples thei brou3te in her lappes 
ChiboUes and cheruelles and ripe chiries manye."^ 

Again, he says the poor folk 

" With grene poret and pesen to poysonn, hunger thei thought."^ 

^ Fetch. 2 Piers Plowman. ^ Ibid. 

41 



42 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Also 

" Two loves of benes and bran 

Y baked for my children."^ 

In picturing the utter destitution of the patient Griseldis, 
Chaucer lays stress on the fact that she was dependent on 
vegetables for food, and being without a garden, had resort to 
the wayside herbs : 

" Whan she homward cam she wolde bringe 
Wortes or othere herbes tyme ofte 
The which she shredde and seeth for her livinge."^ 

At the beginning of this period there was great distress, as the 
country was swept by a scourge worse than war, the fearful 
plague known as the Black Death. As if to add to the horrors 
of the time, and the sufferings of the survivors, there were bad 
seasons, and many crops failed. Even what harvest there was 
could not be gathered, labourers were so scarce. Doubtless 
many orchards and gardens suffered much from the neglect of 
those years. But in spite of this, they were increasing, and 
by the end of the fourteenth century every small manor and 
farm could boast of a garden. For " that londe bereth fruyt 
& corn good ynoughe, that londe is well at ease as longe as 
men lyue in peas."^ This was certainly true, for while men 
lived in comparative peace, there was a revival in gardening 
and husbandry. This progress was again checked by the 
Wars of the Roses, and the next step in advance did not come 
till the restoration of peace in Tudor times. 

In the Middle Ages, what would now be called the kitchen 
garden was in most cases the only one attached to a house. 
The idea of a garden solely for beauty and pleasure was quite 
a secondary consideration. In early cookery-books, various 
recipes for serving up vegetables are given, though only a few 
of these dishes are vegetables cooked alone. But the wealthy, 
who could afford to get all the ingredients of these many 
recipes, had so much meat, and such an immense variety of 
game — cranes, herons, curlews, and other birds, besides those 
still in use — that they did not care for vegetables served 

^ Piers Plowman. ^ Clerk's Tale. 

^ Trevisa, description of Britain in his translation of Higden's Poly- 
chronicon, cir. 1387 (printed by Caxton, 1482). 



FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 43 

separately in any quantities, except on fast-days. Gardens 
had chiefly to supply herbs for stuffing and flavouring, and 
these were freely used. For example, the first recipe in one 
book^ is for cooking a " hare in Wortes." It begins, " Take 
colys, and stripe hem faire from the stalkes, take Betus and 
Borage, auens, Violette, Malvis, parsele, betayii, pacience, the 
white of the lekes and the croppe of the netle ; parboile, presse 
out the water, hew hem small. And do thereto mele," and 
so on. Onions, leeks, and garlick were very largely used. 
Such mixtures as meat or fish cooked with pears or apples, 
spices and sugar, and to which leeks ground small, porrettes 
minced, whole onions or garlick sauce is added, are by no 
means uncommon. The Sompnour, among Chaucer's Canter- 
bury Pilgrims, is a type of the class among whom this taste 
prevailed : 

" Wei lovede he garleek oynouns, and ek leckes." 

All strongly flavoured herbs were popular in cooking, and every 
garden contained a good assortment. Fennel was one in very 
general use, and both the green leaves and also the seeds were 
eaten. As much as eight and a half pounds of fennel-seed were 
bought for the King's household for one month's supply.^ And 
the poor folk used it to relieve the pangs of hunger or to give 
a relish to unpalatable food on fasting days. In Piers Plow- 
man, a priest asks a poor woman : 

" ' Hast thou ought in thy purs ?' quod he, 
' Any hote spices ?' 

' I have peper and piones,'^ quod she, ' and a pounde garhke, 
A ferthyngworth of fenel seed, for fastyng dayes.' " 

In an old medical MS.^ it is said of this plant : 

" Fenel is erbe precyows, 

» * ♦ » 

Good in his sed so is his rote. 
And to many thyngys bote.^ 



^ Harl. MS. 4016, c. 1450, printed Early Eng. Text Soc, ed. by 
T. Austin. 

2 Wardrobe Ace, Edward I., 1281. ^ Peonies. 

* Fourteenth century MS. preserved in the Royal Library, Stock- 
holm. Extracts Archceologia, vol. xxx. ^ Good. 



44 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Fenel in potage and in mete 
Is good to done whane y"^ schalt ete, 
All grene loke it be corwyn^ small 
In what mete y" vsyn schall." 

Mint was often used with fennel in sauces. Chaucer mentions 
them growing together : 

" Then went I forth on my right hond 
Do^vne by a litel path I fond 
Of Mintes full and Fennell greene." 

RomauTit of the Rose. 

Parsley was, perhaps, still more common than either of these. 
In the earliest Enghsh gardening treatise,^ a section of the short 
poem is devoted to parsley, and the instructions for its culture 
are quite correct : 

" Percell kynde ys for to be 
To be sow yn the monthe of mars so mote y the 
He will grow long and thykke 
And euer as he growyth thu schalt hym kytte 
Thn may hym kytte by reson' 
TAryes yn one seson' 
Wurtys to make and sewes^ also. 
Let hym neuer to hye go 
To lete hym grow to hye hit is grete foly. 

* * * * 

Thay thaA. the sede schal bere the 
Kytte hym nou5t but lete hym be." 

The same practical poet, John Gardener, also gives directions 
for the planting of onions, garlick, and leeks. They were to 
be sown on St. Valentine's day, as they are " herbys vn-meke," 
or what would now be called " hardy." The onion plants 
which were required for seed were to be sown in April or 
March, and when the heads began to grow tall they were 
supported by ash-sticks : 

" Forkys y made of asche-tre 
That none of hem downe nou3t fall 

* * * * 

When they rype they wyl schow 
And by the bollys thu schalt hem know 

^ = carved =cut up. 

^ MS., Trinity College, Cambridge, transcribed by myself and printed 
in ArchcBologia, 1894. See illustration facing p. 62. 
^ Sauces. 



FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 45 

The sede wt[ith]yn wul schewe blake 
Then thu schalt hem vp take 
They wul be rype at the full 
At lammasse of Peter Apostull." 

Saffron was used in cookery in astonishing quantities, and the 
price paid for it was very high — from ten to twenty shilhngs per 
pound. It was chiefly grown in the Eastern Counties. Wal- 
singham, in Norfolk, was famous for its saffron in early times, 
and the plant gave its name to the town of Saffron Walden, in 
Essex. The beds of saffron required considerable care. John 
Gardener says the " Beddys " must be " y-made wel wyth dyng, 
For sothe yf thay schal bere." The bulbs, he goes on to say, 
must be set with " a dybbyl," and planted three inches deep. 

" Thay wold be sette yn the moneth of September 
Three days by-fore seynt mary day natyuyte." 

Among the other herbs of the garden, cabbages, or kale, held a 
foremost place. They are spoken of as " caboges," " cabochis," 
" caul," or " kole-plantes," and sometimes " wurtes," or 
" wortes," stands for cabbages.^ John Gardener speaks of 
" wortys " in that sense : 

" How he schall hys sedys sowe 
Of euery m.oneth he most knowe 
Bothe of wortys and of leke 
Ownyns and of garleke 
Percely clarey and eke sagt 
And all other herbage." 

He devotes a paragraph of twenty-five lines to the culture of 
these " wortys." He says they could be had all times of the 
year by a careful succession of sowings : 

" Euery moneth hath his name 
To set and sow w'ou3t eny blame 
May for somer ys al the best 
July for eruyst^ ys the nexst 
Novembr' for wynter mote the thyrde be 
Mars for lent so mote y the^ 
* * * * 

And so fro moneth to moneth 

Thu schalt bryng 'thy wurtys forthe." 

^ " Brassica . . . wortes aut cole aut colewortes " (Turner's Libellus, 
1538). 

^ =harvest. ^ =so may I thrive. 



46 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

In fifteenth-century cookery-books recipes are found for 
cabbages, both in " potage " or dressed with marrow, gruel, 
and saffron. In the lists of great banquets which have been 
preserved, such dressed vegetables rarely, if ever, occur. At 
the third course of a banquet on the occasion of Henry IV. 's 
marriage, " pescodde " and " strawberry " were among the 
dishes, but this is almost a solitary instance among bills of fare 
of that date.^ Cabbages were, from the earliest times, grown 
in this country, but it may be some improved variety which 
is referred to in the following passage :^ " Sir Anthony Ashley, 
of Wimborne St. Giles, Dorset, first planted cabbages in this 
country, and a cabbage at his feet appears on his monument." 
The tomb is to be seen in the church to this day, dated 1627.^ 

There was both a good variety and a fair supply of fruit in 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Several new kinds of 
apple and pear are mentioned by the poets of the day, and 
must have been well known. Lydgate speaks of the Pome- 
water,^ Ricardon, Blaundrelle, and Queening apples. Gower 
of another kind, the Bitter-sweet : 

" For all such time of love is lore 
And like unto the bitter-swete 
^ For though it think a man fyrst swete 

He shall well felen at laste 
That it is sower. "^ 

Confessio Amantis. 

In the Miller's Tale, Chaucer incidentally alludes to the old 
custom of storing apples : 

" Hire mouthe was swete as . . . 

. . . hord of applies, laid in hay or hethe." 

^ Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books, by T. Austin, E. E. Text Soc. 

^ Isaac D' Israeli, Curiosities of Literature. 

^ A serious fire which took place in 1908 has, unfortunately, greatly 
damaged the tomb and monument. The cabbage, being removable, 
was able to be carried out of the burning church; and hopes are enter- 
tained that the greater portion of the monument can be restored, and 
the cabbage replaced as before. 

* Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost : " Ripe as a Pomewater, who 
hangcth now like a jewel in the ear of ccelo— the sky, the welkin, the 
heaven." 

^ Romeo and Juliet : " Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting, it is a most 
sharp sauce." 



FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 47 

He gives the name of a pear, evidently newly introduced, in 
the same description : 

" She was wel more blisful on to see 
Than is the newe perjenete tree." 

Wardons were still the most popular of cooking varieties. In 
recipes for dressing pears, the Wardon is usually intended, as^ 
" Peris in Syrippe. Take Wardons, and cast hem in a fair 
potte," or " Peris in Compost. Take pere Wardons and pare 
hem." At Henry IV. 's wedding-feast these pears in syrup 
occur twice, and are included in the same course as venison, 
quails, sturgeon, fieldfare, etc. At the coronation feast of the 
same King we find quinces in " comfy te," and also " Pome- 
dorreing," or golden apple, supposed in this case to stand for 
oranges, as this rare fruit might be obtained for such a great 
occasion. Oranges probably were occasionally brought to this 
country at an even earlier date. It is said that in the eighteenth 
year of Edward I. the Queen bought, out of the cargo of a 
large Spanish ship, one frail of figs, one of raisins, one bale of 
dates, two hundred and thirty pomegranates, fifteen citrons, 
and seven oranges.^ 

Cherries were cultivated very extensively. The season of 
gathering them is spoken of by Langland as " cherry-time." 
This cherry-harvest, coming at the height of summer, was a 
time of merry-making, and to it Gower compares the brief 
length of human life, which 

"... endureth but a throw 
Right as it were a cherry feast." 

Confessio Amaniis. 

And Lydgate also uses the cherry-fair as a simile : 

" This world is but a cherry fair." 

Cherries and strawberries were hawked in the streets of 
London, and the cry of " Ripe strawberries !" was familiar even 
in Lydgate's time : 

" Then vnto London I dyd me hye 
Of all the land it beareth the pryse 

^ Harl. MS. 4016, E. E. Text. Soc. 

^ Manners and Household Expenses, ed. Beriah Botfield, Roxburghe 
Club, 1841. 



48 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

' Hot pescodes ' one began to crye 

* Strabery rype ' and ' cherryes in the ryse '^ 

One bade me come nere and by some spyse 

Peper and safforne they gan me bede 

But for lack of mony I mgyht not spede." 

London Lyckpeny. 

Peaches are mentioned by Lydgate among " the fruits which 
more common be," but only inferior varieties were in cultiva- 
tion. Medlars were also grown, and were kept before being 
eaten, as is still the practice. In the Prologue to the Reeve s 
Tale, Chaucer refers to this custom, speaking of the old age of 
the Reeve : 

" But if I fare as doth an open-ers^ 
That ilke fruit is ever lenger the wers 
Til it be roten in mullock^ or in stre."^ 

In the description of the garden and arbour in The Flower and 
the Leaf, a medlar-tree in full bloom, that " to the herber side 
was joyning," is thus picturesquely described : 

" And as I stood and cast aside mine eie 
I was ware of the fairest medlar tree, 
That ever yet in all my life I sie. 
As full of blossomes as it might be. 
"^ Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile 

Fro bough to bough ; and as him list, he eet 
Here and there of buds and fioures sweet." 

Plums are not often mentioned, either by the poets, or in old 
accounts, but it is known that both damsons and buUaces were 
grown in this country, though probably in no great quantities. 
In the Romaunt of the Rose, Chaucer classes them among 
homely fruits : 

" And many hoomely trees there were 
That peches, coynes,* and apples here 
Medlers, ploumes, peres, chesteynis, 
Cheryse, of which many one fayne is, 
Notes, aleys and bolas 
That for to seen it was solas." (L. 1373.) 

Gardeners of this date paid great attention to grafting. The 
art of grafting a pear on a hawthorn was known at a very early 

1 —branch, twig. ^ =a medlar. 

' =rubbish and straw. * —quinces. 




ARBOUR. 

From •' Roman elf la Rose" Flemish MS., late fiflccuth cenlnry. 



To face page 48. 



n 



FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 49 

period. John Gardener directs the stocks for grafts of both 
apples and pears to be planted in January, the apple on an 
apple-stock, and the pear " a-pon a haw-thorne." The 
grafting, he says, should take place any time between Sep- 
tember and April : 

" Wyth a saw thou schalt the tre kytte 
And with a knyfe smowth make hytte 
Klene a-tweyne the stok of the tre 
Where-yn that they graffe schall be 
Make thy Kyttyng' of thy graffe 
By-twyne the newe & the olde staff e." 

Clay had to be laid on the stock, " tokepethe rayneowte," and 
moss bound over the clay with " a wyth of haseltree rynde." 
Most of the early writers on gardening and husbandry devote a 
large share of their treatises to grafting, and various experi- 
ments to change the colour or flavour of the fruits were made, 
Robert Salle is quoted as an authority on grafting in the 
fifteenth century.^ He says : " Yf thou wilt make thyn apples 
reede, take the graffe of an appel tree and graffe hit on a stok 
of elme or aldyr and hit shall ber' reede apples," " Make an 
hole w^ a wymbyll' in a tree and what colour thu wilt distempre 
hit -with vjdder and put hit in at the hole and the fruit shal be 
of the same colour."^ 

It was considered the most essential part of a husbandman's 
education that he should be well skilled in grafting, as the 
following lines, though of later date, so well describe : " It is 
necessarye, profytable, and also a pleasure, to a housbande, to 
have peares, wardens, and apples of dyuerse sortes. And also 
cheryes, filberdes, bulleys, dampsons, plummes, walnuttes, and 
suche other. And therefore it is convenyent to lerne howe 
thou shalte graffe,"^ 

Gardens of this date were usually square enclosures, bounded 
either by walls of stone, brick, or daub, or by thick hedges. 
There were generally two entrances to them ; one, a door 
opening from the house, the other giving access from the 

^ Sloane MS., 122. 

^ The same recipes are also given in the Porkington Treatise printed 
for the Warton Club, 1855, ed. by Halliwell. 

^ Book of Husbandry, by FitzHerbert, 1544, ed. Skeat, 1882. 

4 



50 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

garden into the orchard or meadow. If high hedges and 
walls were retained in later times on account of their beauty 
or shelter, it was certainly with a view to security that they 
were originally adopted. 

" I saw a garden right anoon 
Full long and broad and everidele 
Enclosed was and walled wele 
With hie walles embatailed."^ 

Within the enclosure all was trim and neat. All round 
against the wall a bank of earth was thrown up, the front of 
which was faced with brick or stone, and the mould planted 
with sweet-smelling herbs. At intervals there were recesses 
with seats or benches covered with turf, " theck yset and soft 
as any velvet." Low mounds of earth were also made here 
and there, in the garden, " on which one might sit and rest," 
and these " benches " were also " turved with newe turves 
grene." The little paths throughout the garden were covered 
with sand or gravel, and kept free from weeds. Lydgate 
mentions a garden, in which " all the alleys were made playne 
with sand."^ 

No garden was considered complete without its arbour, its 
" privy playing place." They were either set in a nook in the 
wall, or in a part of the garden sheltered by a thick hedge. 
The arbour, or " herber," was made of trees thickly inter- 
twined with climbing plants, to screen those within from the 
eyes of the intruder. One is thus described in The Flower 
and the Leaf : 

" And at the last a path of little brede 
I found, that greatly had not used be. 
For it forgrowen was with grasse and weede. 
That well-unneth^ a wighte might it se : 

Thought I, this path some whidar goth, parde, 

And so I followed, till it me brought 

To right a pleasaunt herber well y wrought." 

That benched was and with turfes new 
Freshly turved, whereof the grene gras. 
So small, so thicke, so short, so fresh of hew, 

^ Chaucer, Romaunt of the Rose, 1. 136. 

^ The Chorle and the Bird. ^ —scarcely, hardly. 




TURFED SEAT IN A GARDEN WALL. 

From "Roman dc la Rose," Flemish MS., late fifteenth century. 



To face page 50. 



FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 51 

That most like unto green wool wot I it was : 
The heggc also that yede in compas^ 
And closed in all the greene herbere 
With sicamour^ was set and eglatere. 

And shapen was this herber roofe and all 

As a pretty parlour : and also 

The hegge as thicke as a castle wall, 

That who that list without to stond or go 
Though he would all day prien to and fro 
He should not see if there were any wight within or no." 

This same idea of seclusion as the essential feature of an 
arbour is evident in the fifteenth-century poem, La Belle Dame 
Sans Merci : ^ 

" And sett me down by-hynde a traile 
Fulle of levis, to see, a grete mervaile, 
With grene wythyes y bounden wonderlye 
The leeves wore so thicke wiih-ont faile 
That thorough-oute myghte no mann me espye." 

The flowers around an arbour are described in a fourteenth- 
century poem, entitled The Pearl : 

" I entered in thcit erber grene 
In augoste in a high seysoun 

***** 

Schadowed this wortes ful schyre* and schene 
Gilofre,^ gyngure,^ & groomylyon' 
& pyonys powdered ay betwene." 

Each garden contained some kind of cistern for water, and in 
many cases a fountain elaborately ornamented was placed in 
the centre, or in some conspicuous position. The illustration 
reproduced here shows the ordinary fountain of a good garden 
of the day, introduced to represent Rebecca's well, and many 
characteristic paintings of such fountains are to be found in 
fifteenth-century MSS.^ 

The varieties of flowers planted in these gardens were 

^ =went round it. ^ =honey suckle. 

^ E. E. Text Society, vol. iv. * =bright. 

^ = clove-pinks. ^ = tansy. 

"^ gromwell. ^ See B. M., 14. E. 2. f. 77. 

4—2 



52 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

not very numerous, but those few kinds grew in great pro- 
fusion : 

" Ther sprang the violete al newe. 

And fresshe pervinke riche of hewe. 

And floures yelowe, whyte and rede : 

Swich plentee grew ther never in made. 

Ful gay was al the ground, and queynt 
■ ' And poudred, as men had it peynt, 

With many a fresh and sondry flour, 

That casten up a ful good savour."^ 

The periwinkle, or parwinke, was a general favourite. It was 
a plant well suited to cover and brighten the ground in the 
shady comers of the garden, and thus gained the appropriate 
najne of " Joy of the ground " : 

" Parwynke is an erbe grene of colour 

In tyme of May he beryth bio flour. 

* * * * * 

Ye lef is thicke schinede and styf. 
As is ye grene jwy leef . 
Vnche brod and nerhand^ rownde 
Men calle it ye joy of grownde."^ 

In an old ballad, a noble lady is called " The parwenke of 
prowesse," the periwinkle being then used to typify excellence, 
in the same way as the pink in Elizabethan times, " The very 
pink of courtesy." 

Among yellow flowers in the same garden, the marigold, 
or gold, as it is called by old writers, would be conspicuous : 

" Golde is bitter in savour. 
Fayr and 5elu is his flower. 
Ye golde flour is good to seene."* 

Jealousy is described by Chaucer as decked with these flowers. 
" Jealousy that werede of yelwe guides a garland." 

Violets were also " herbs well cowth," or well known. 
They were grown not only for their sweet fragrance, but also 
as salad herbs, and " Flowers of violets " were eaten raw, 
with onions and lettuce. Among the ingredients for a kind 
of broth they are mentioned with fennel and savory.^ They 

^ Chaucer, Romaunt of the Rose, 1. 143 1. ^ —nearly. 

^ Medical MS., Stogkholm, Archcsologia, vol. xxx. 

4 Ibid. ^ Form of Cury. 




FOUNTAIN. 
From ail English MS., "Speculum;' c. 1450. 



To face page 52. 



FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 53 

were also used to garnish dishes. In an old recipe for a pudding 
called " mon amy," the cook is directed to " plant it with 
flowers of violets, and serve it forth." ^ In another MS. a 
recipe for a dish called " vyolette " is given. " Take flowrys 
of vyolet, boyle hem, presse hem, bray hem smal." This is 
to be mixed with milk, " floure of rys," sugar or honey, and 
" coloured " with violets. Not only were violets cooked, but 
hawthorn, primroses, and even roses, shared the same fate, 
and were treated in the same way. One recipe, called " rede 
rose," is simply, " Take the same saue a-lye it with the yolkys 
of eyroun and forther-more as vyolet." The rose hips were 
also used, and in a dainty dish called " saue saracen," " hippes " 
were the chief ingredient. It cannot have enhanced the beauty 
or poetry of such flowers to feel that they were commonly 
cooked and eaten. 

After this shock to sentiment, it is reassuring to find the 
rose still valued for its loveliness and perfume. Although 
a rosery of to-day would astonish the possessors of gardens in 
the Middle Ages, and the varied forms and colours would 
bewilder them, yet in some of our finest-looking roses they 
would miss what to them was the essential characteristic of 
a rose, its sweet scent ! Nothing more readily than the subtle 
fragrance of a rose can conjure in our minds a dream of summer, 
and many a one since the days of Chaucer has experienced 
what the poet felt when, approaching a rose-garden, he ex- 
claimed : 

" The savour of the roses swote 
Me smote right to the herte rote," 

or when crowns of roses and lilies perfume the air, 

" The swete smel, that in myn herte I find 
Hath changed me al in another kind." 

* The following is the recipe of this excellent dish : " Take thick 
creme of cowe-mylke, and boyle hit over the fire and then take hit up 
and set hit on the side : — and then take swete cowe cruddes and presse 
out the qway (whey) , and bray horn in a mortar and cast horn into the 
same creme and boyle altogether — and put thereto sugre and saffron, 
and May butter — and take yolkes of eyren streyned, and betten, and in 
the settynge doune of the pot bete in the yolkes thereto, & stere it wel, 
& make the potage stondynge : and dresse five or seaven leches (slices 
of bread) in a dish, and plant with floures of violet and serve hit forthe." 



54 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

There were both red and white double roses, as well as the 
single, and the common dog-rose and sweetbriar. They were 
planted along the walls, or singly, here and there in the garden, 
or clambering over the arbour. The double-red (a variety of 
Rosa Gallica) was the most prized, and as if this red rose was 
the most lovely thing that could be imagined, it is thus brought 
into an Ave Maria of the early fifteenth century : 

" Heil be thou, I\Iarie, that art flour of alle 
As roose in eerbir so reed I"^ 

Chaucer praises the buds of the double rose, which are more 
lasting than the quickly-falling petals of the single kinds : 

" I love wel sweitie roses rede : 
For brode roses, and open also, 
Ben passed in a day or two ; 
But knoppes^ wilen fresshe be 
Two dayes atte least or three." 

When the red or white rose became the badge of two contending 
parties, it doubtless depended on the side taken by the owner 
of the garden which colour prevailed therein. The " fresh 
redde rose newe, against the sommer sunne,"^ or the " white 
rose of England that is frishe and wol not fade. Both the rote 
& the stalke that is of great honoure.""* Roses were the 
commonest of all flowers, for weaving into wreaths and gar- 
lands : 

" And on hire hed ful semely for to see 
A rose gerlond fresh and wel smelling."^ 

" And also on his head was sette 
Of roses redde a chapelette."^ 

The periwinkle, with trailing leaves, was suitable for wreaths, 
and many other flowers were used. Emely in her garden 
gathered " floures, party whyte and reede, to make a sotil 
gerland for hire heede."^ But these pretty chaplets of flowers 
were not only worn by beautiful maidens, for even the far from 
prepossessing sompnour, among the Canterbury pilgrims, had 

^ Early Eng. Text Soc. ^ =btids. 

^ A ssembly of Fowles, by Chaucer. 

* Political poem, 1460-71, Early Eng. Text Soc, vol. iv. 

^ Knight's Tale. ^ Romaunt of the Rose. ' Knight's Tale. 



FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 55 

" a garland set upon his heed." The annual rendering of a 
rose was a common kind of " quit rent." Sometimes the exact 
sort of rose is carefully specified in the lease as " a rose from 
a rose-tree,"^ or " a red rose,"^ or " a double rose,"^ or again, 
" a barbed arrow with a rose.""* A flower or seed of the clove, 
pink, or gilliflower was also frequently the payment, and 
even a daisy might be held sufficient.^ The lily ranked next 
to the rose in importance in a garden, and vied with the rose 
for a share in the poet's song.® The white lily {Lilium candi- 
dum) served to typify all that was good and pure, or beautiful : 

" First wol I you the name of Seinte Cecilie 
Expoune, as men may in hire storie see : 
It is to sayn in English, Haven's lilie."'' 

" That Emelie, that fairer was to seene 
Than is the lilie or hire stalke grene."^ 

" Upon his hand he bore for his delyt 
An eagle tame, as any lily whyte."^ 

The yellow flag and purple iris are sometimes indiscriminately 
spoken of as HHes. In the old medical MS. already referred to, 
the HHe" that waxit in 5erdis" (groweth in gardens) is described 
as white as any milk, and the three other kinds of the field 
and wood were yellow, " hke saffron," and one " blue purple " ; 
but these are also spoken of as " gladdon " and " yreos." 
Other flowers were brought in from the fields and woods, and 
perhaps improved by cultivation. The geranium of the flower 
garden in the Middle Ages was the wild cranesbill, or small 
herb Robert. The wild scabious and poppy were in the place 

^ " Unam rosam de rosario," Ancient Deeds Record Office, vol. iv., 
A7962. 

^ Among the receipts of Bicester Abbey, 19th Rich. II., for lands and 
tenements : " Una rosa rubea recept' di Henrico Bowols de Curtlyng- 
ton . . . et de uno g'no gariophili rec' de Rog' o de Stodele . . .," etc. 
(Dunkin, History of Bullington and Ploughley). In most instances the 
clove seed =the clove spice of commerce. 

^ " Rosam dupplicatum," Ancient Deeds Record Office, A10395. 

* iSthEd. I., ibid. A6529. 

^ 2nd Ed. II., " Flore minor e consolido," ibid., AS 168. 

® " Lillys " and " roses " are the only flowers mentioned on the 
gardeners' rolls of Norwich Priory. 

' The Second Noune's Tale. ® Knight's Tale. ^ Ibid. 



56 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

of the showy annuals and biennials of our gardens of to-day. 
But many indigenous plants would make no mean show, such as 
cowslips, daffodils, primroses, foxglove, mullein, St. John's worts, 
gentian, oxalis, mallow, corncockle, yarrow, campion, knap- 
weed, or honeysuckle, all of which areknown to have beengrown. 
There were corners, too, where a peony or tall hollyhock or 
monkshood flowered, or shaded nook filled with the glossy 
leaves of the hartstongue, or a portion of the long bed was 
made bright with pinks and columbines, or sweetly scented 
with lavender, rosemary, or thyme. In describing the flowers 
of a garden in Chaucer's time, the one which he called 

" The daysie or elles the eye of day 
The emperise and flour of floures alle " 

must not be overlooked. It found its way into the trimmest 
gardens ; the greenswards and arbours were " powdered " with 
daisies. To quote Chaucer again : 

" Home to my house full swiftly I me sped 
To gone to rest, and early for to rise 
- To scene this fioure to sprede, as I devise 

And in a little herber that I have 
That benched was on turves fresh y grave 
I bad me shoulde me my couche make." 

Though a daisy plant is supposed to spoil the most velvety turf, 
yet none would see it banished from our gardens, and all agree 
in loving the little flower with the poet who said, 

" Si douce est la Marguerite." 

The gardens that were described by Chaucer, although in- 
tended for ideal ones, were no doubt but faithful pictures of 
the gardens of his day, seen through his poet's eye. The 
garden, " ful of braunches grene," in which Emely was walking 
when she was watched by the imprisoned knights, was such 
as might be seen beneath many a feudal castle wall. 

" The grete tour, that was so thikke and strong, 
Which of the castel was the cheef dongeoun 

***** 
Was evene joynant to the gardyn wal." 

There is in history a counterpart of this garden of romance, 
that of Windsor Castle. When James I. of Scotland was there, 




GARDEN, 
From "Roman de la Rose," Flemish MS , late fifteenth century. 



To face page 56. 



FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 57 

in captivity, his solace was writing verse, and he has left this 
most charming picture of the garden beneath his prison 
window : 

" Now was there made, fast by the Towris wall, 
A garden fair ; — and in the corners set 
An arbour green, with wandis long and small 
Railed about, and so with trees set 
Was all the place, and Hawthorne hedges knet, 
That lyf was none walking there forbye 
That might within scarce any wight espy. 

" So thick the boughes and the leaves green 
Beshaded all the alleys that there were, 
And mids of every arbour might be seen 
The sharpe greene sweet Juniper 
Growing so fair with branches here and there, 
That as it seemed to a lyf without, 
The boughes spread the arbour all about. 

" And on the smalle greene twistis sat 
The little sweet nightingale, and sung 
So loud and clear, the hymnis consecrat 
Of loris use, now soft, now lowd, among. 
That all the gardens and the wallis rung 
Right of their song." 



CHAPTER IV 

EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE 

" And all was walled that wone /A0U5 it wid were 
Wi^A posterns in pryuytie to pasen when hem list 
Orche3ardes and erberes eused well clene." 

Piers Plowman' s Crede, C. 1394. 

BEFORE proceeding any farther with the history of 
gardening, it will be as well to pass in review the litera- 
ture on the subject relating to the periods which have been 
traversed. The knowledge of herbs and flowers in Saxon 
times, and for several centuries later, was all learnt from 
classical authors. The works of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, 
Galen, Pliny, and Apuleius, formed the basis of Saxon plant- 
lore. The Herbarium of Apuleius (who lived about the fourth 
century a.d.) was founded on the works of Dioscorides and 
Pliny, and it is chiefly through Apuleius that these earlier 
writers were known. This herbal was translated into Anglo- 
Saxon, and must have been a very popular book, for no less 
than four MSS. of it exist, which is a large proportion out of the 
scanty remains of books of such early times. ^ The names of 
plants which are to be found in these MSS. are most interesting, 
and are useful for the identification of the names used in later 
herbals. Another good hst of herbs in Anglo-Saxon is to be 

^ Translations are to be fomid in Cockayne, Leechdom and Wort- 
cunning of Early England, 1864, notes in Early-English Plant Names, 
Earle, 1880 — original MSS. Cotton VitelHus ciii. Brit. Mus. date circa 
1000-1066. Trinity College, Cambridge, O. 2. 48, 14th century. Also 
in Harleian 815, Liber Medicinalis. (Harleian 5066, Herbarium 
Saxonicum. Thus described in the Catalogue, is not in the MS. 
thus numbered, and a note to say it was not there in 1804 is 
signed " D.") 

58 



EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE 59 

found in ^Ifric's Grammatica.'^ This includes most of the 
simple herbs then known, with the Latin equivalents. The 
Latin is not always correctly translated, the name of some 
common native flower being sometimes substituted for a plant 
which was unknown to the writer. 

The earliest writers on this subject in England were Church- 
men : Alexander Necham, Abbot of Cirencester, and Bishop 
Grosseteste, of Lincoln. They both studied at the University 
of Paris, and thus had an opportunity of seeing for themselves 
the state of horticulture abroad. Their writings only touch 
incidentally on gardening. Grosseteste^ (b. cir. 1175, d, 1253) 
wrote on many subjects ; he was skilled in medicine, and had 
a knowledge of the virtues and properties of plants. The 
works attributed to him are so numerous, that it is scarcely 
possible that all can have come from his pen, but everything 
which bore his name continued to be read, and referred to, 
for more than two centuries after his death. Therefore his 
works on husbandry must have had considerable influence on 
horticulture. Palladius's work, De Re Rustica, written at some 
early date, probably in the fifth century, was the foundation of 
nearly all English writings on husbandry for several centuries, 
and most of them, that of Grosseteste included, were merely 
translations, or adaptations, of this work. De Re Rustica is 
in fourteen books. The first is introductory, the following 
twelve are devoted in turn to each month of the year, the 
fourteenth to grafting. Various recipes, such as growing apples 
without cores or cherries without stones, were thus passed on 
by men who took no trouble to investigate the truth of their 
assertions, and in the fifteenth century were as much believed 
in as they had been in the thirteenth, although, gardening 
having been practised all this time, something much more 
accurate could have been written. A translation of Walter de 
Henley's Husbandry is attributed, probably erroneously, to 
Grosseteste.^ The original was written in Anglicized Norman- 

^ Vocabularies in a Library of National Antiquities, Wright, 1857, 
MS. Brit. Mus. Cotton Julius A ii. 

^ See Sam Pegge, Life of Robert Grosseteste, 1793, p. 308. 

^ Sloane MS. 686 : " The tretyse off housbandry that Mayster Groshe 
[de] made that whiche was Bishope of Lycoll he translate this booke 
out off frensche in to English." 



6o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

French, but this treatise concerns the farm more than the 
garden.^ 

Necham, who Hved at the same time as Grosseteste, was a 
more original writer. He was born in 1157, passed the early 
part of his life at St. Albans, and was made the director of the 
school belonging to the Abbey at Dunstable ; by 1180 he was 
a distinguished professor at Paris University ; returned to 
Dunstable about 1186, but soon after left the Benedictines of 
St. Albans, and joined the Augustines of Cirencester ; was there 
elected Abbot in 1213, and died in 1217. Necham's " De 
laudibus divinae Sapientiae," a poem in ten parts, devotes many 
lines to the praise of various flowers and fruits. The seventh 
book is on the excellence of such herbs as betony, centaury, 
plantain, and wormwood ; the eighth is about fruits — cherries, 
peaches, medlars, and so forth. He does not, however, confine 
his praises to English productions, but sings of terebinth, 
cinnamon, and spices, and fruits which he had probably never 
seen in their natural state. In like manner, his description in 
his other work, De Naturis Rerum, of what a " noble garden " 
should be, is drawn from imagination, as many plants, quite 
unfit for culture in the open air in this country, or even in 
Europe, are included in the list of what the garden should con- 
tain. This is easily accounted for, as Necham, like others of 
his time, borrowed freely from classical writers. " The 
garden," 2 he writes, " should be adorned with roses and lilies, 
turnsole, violets, and mandrake ; there you should have parsley 
and cost, and fennel, and southernwood, and coriander, sage, 
savory, hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, smallage, pellitory, lettuce, 
garden cress, peonies. There should also be planted beds with 
onions, leeks, garlick, pumpkins, and shalots ; cucumber, poppy, 
daffodil, and acanthus ought to be in a good garden. There 
should also be pottage herbs, such as beets, herb mercury, 
orach, sorrel, and mallows." So far, this is evidently a 
simple catalogue of what was to be seen in his garden at 
Cirencester, or any other fair-sized garden of his day. But 

* Several MSS. exist ; see Dr. Cunningham's Introduction to Walter de 
Henley's Husbandry, Royal Historical Society, 1890. 

^ The translation of the names of plants is taken from Wright's 
edition of Necham's works. 



EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE 6i 

besides " medlars, quinces, Warden pears, peaches, and 
pears of St. Regula," he adds such fruits as oranges, lemons, 
pomegranates, myrrh, and spices, and other things equally 
incredible. 

Another classical writer of uncertain date was Macer. An 
author of that name was contemporary with Virgil, but the 
writer of the Herbal, which was translated into many languages, 
must have lived at some later date, as he quotes Galen. It is 
strictly a herbal treating of the medicinal uses of herbs and 
spices. The old translations are valuable, as giving the English 
equivalents of the Latin names, and Macer's was such a 
common handbook that anyone planting a herb garden would 
try to obtain as many of the plants mentioned by him as 
could be found in England at that period. The name of the 
first translator of Macer is lost in obscurity, but there is a 
manuscript translation, dated 1373, by John Lelamour, school- 
master of Hertford,^ and several other early translations exist, 
although the book was not printed until about 1530. One of 
them is curious, from the additions made by the translator 
or transcriber of some plants known to him, and not men- 
tioned by Macer. ^ He subjoins also some further medical 
recipes, which indicate more of the usual plants of a herb 
garden. The following example is the recipe given for curing 
the pestilence : — " Do take and medele, pimpernoll, sauge, 
auance, seint mary gouldes, tansey, sorell', and columbyne, 
stampe these VII erbes and drink the ioiuse of hem in ole ale 
or clene wsiter and it wole distroie the pestilence be it never 
so felle." 

Further information about gardens is to be gained from 
other medical works. There is an English fourteenth-century 
medical poem preserved in MS. in the Royal Library, Stock- 
holm, which contains some graphic descriptions of flowers. 
With regard to the good qualities of rosemary, the author says : 
" Rosmarine is bothen erbe & tre, hot and drie of kende 
hys lewys am euermore grene & neuer more falty as techy 
bokes of fysik and ek bokys of skole of sallerne wrot to ye 
countess of hernaunde and sche sente ye copy to hyre dowter 

^ Sloane, No. 5, Sec. 3. 

^ MS. circa 1440, formerly in the Amherst Library at Didlington. 



62 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

phelyp qwen of Ingelond."^ This, of course, was Philippa of 
Hainault, wife of Edward III,, and it is interesting to note that 
there is a MS. in the British Museum,^ with the following title : 
" Chiburn on the virtues of Ros maryn written at the com- 
mand of the Countess of Henawd who sent the copy to her 
daughter Phylyp, Queen of England," 

Another medical work, by " the venerable doctor. Master 
Gilbert Kymer," is a treatise addressed to Humphrey, Duke 
of Gloucester, entitled Dietarium de Sanitatis Custodia. Kymer 
gives a list of herbs to be put in potage, that the Duke might 
safely take, also full instructions as to what fruits could be 
eaten before meals and what others after. This list in- 
cludes, besides the commonest fruits, damsons, strawberries, 
figs, medlars, and peaches, and also foreign fruits and spices. 
A list of plants with Latin, English, and French equivalents 
was made by John Bray, a physician and botanist, in receipt 
of a yearly pension of loo^ from WilHam, Earl of Salisbury, 
and then from Richard II. His work Synonomd de nominibus 
herbarum^ is simply a good collection of names alphabetically 
arranged, but contains no descriptions or cultural directions. 

Palladius was as much translated in the fifteenth as he had 
been in the thirteenth century. There is no clue to the author 
of the English version, of which a manuscript dating from 
about 1420 exists at Colchester ;"* but the name and work of 
another translator, of the same date, have been preserved. He 
was a monk of Westminster, named Nicholas Bollard, and either 
himself translated direct from Palladius, or transcribed or 
translated through " Godfrey," the parts of the work on 
husbandry relating to grafting, planting, and sowing. Robert 
Salle also reissued part of the same work,^ Another MS, of 
the fifteenth century known as the Porkington Treatise has 

^ ArchcBologia, vol. xxx. ^ Sloane, No. 7, Sec. 5. 

^ Sloane MS. 282 (24), pp. 167 v. to 173 v. 

* Printed E. Eng. Text Soc, ed. by S. T. H. Heritage. 

^ The MS, in the British Museum, containing the work by Salle, ends 
thus : " Here endeth the telyng of trees after Godfray upon paladie and 
her begynneth the tretis of Nicholas Bollard." Then follows the chapter 
on " the manner of sectyng of trees," and grafting, at the end of which 
it is stated : " here endeth the chapter of the first partie of Godfray upon 
Paladie de Agricultura." 



EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE 63 

a few pages devoted to grafting and planting of trees which 
contain almost the same matter as those already cited, with a 
few additions. The author gives all the usual recipes for 
making fruit grow without stones, and so on, but he tells also 
how to graft a vine and a red rose on a cherry, and how to make 
the fruit turn blue by boring " an hole in the tre ni3e the rote " 
and putting in " good asure of Almayne "; also, he says rose 
hips, or " pepynes," as he calls them, should be sown in 
February or March, " and dew heme welle with water " " iff 
thou wolt have many rosys in thy herbere."^ 

The earliest known really original work on gardening, 
written in English, is a treatise in verse by " Mayster Ion 
Gardener," of which a unique manuscript exists in the Library 
of Trinity College, Cambridge.^ It is contained in a small 
volume of miscellaneous manuscript matter, which was given 
to the College by Roger Gale in 1738 . This copy was apparently 
written about 1440, but the poem is probably of earlier date. 
From the evidence of the language, it appears that the author 
was Kentish, and from the mistakes of the copyist, it would 
seem that he was unfamiliar with some of the words which 
were becoming obsolete at the time he wrote. The existing 
title, " The Feate of Gardening," is evidently added by a later 
hand. Nothing definite is known of the author of this poem. 
He may have been a professional gardener, or he may merely 
have assumed the name, as symbolic of the craft, just as Lang- 
land wrote under the name of Piers Plowman. John certainly 
was a very common Christian name among the gardeners 
of the period. This treatise is a great step in advance of 
earlier writers. It is so thoroughly practical that the direc- 
tions it contains might be followed with successful results at 
the present day. It is unencumbered by superstitions, then 
so prevalent, and quite free from fanciful recipes. The poem 
contains 196 lines, consisting of a prologue and eight divisions, 
under the following headings : " Off settyng' and Reryng' of 
Treys "— " Of graffyng' of Treys "— " Of cuttyng' and settyng' 

^ Porkington MS., the property of W. Ormsby Gore, published by 
the Warton Club in 1855, under the title of Early English Miscellanies, 
ed. by G. O. Halliwell, F.R.S., etc. 

* Printed, from my transcription, in the ArchcBologia, vol. liv., with a 
glossary by myself. 



64 



A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



of Vynys " — " Of settyng' and sowyng' of Sedys " — " Of 
sowyng' and settyng' of Wurtys " — " Of the kynd of Fer- 
selye " — " Of other maner Herbys " — " Of the kynde of Safer- 
owne." This work is invaluable, as it gives incontrovertible 
evidence of the plants then actually to be found in an English 
garden, and the way in which they were cultivated, and is, of 
course, infinitely more worthy of belief on this subject than 
any translated work. The only other available sources of 
information on this point are the early cookery-books, in some 
of which the herbs suitable for a garden are enumerated. 
The following is a list of plants mentioned in John Gardener's 
poem : 



Plants from " The Feate of Gardening." 



Adderstong {Ophioglossum). 

Affodylt {Narcissus Pseudo- 
narcissus) . 

Auans [Geum urhanum). 

Appyl {Pyrus Malus) . 

Asche tre [Fraxinus excelsior). 

Betony [Stachys Betonica) . 

Borage {Borrago officinalis). 

Bryswort {Bellis ferennis). 

Bugutt [Ajuga reptans). 

Bygult {Chrysanthemum sege- 
tum). 

Calamynte {Calamintha offici- 
nalis) . 

Camemyl {Anthemis nohilis). 

Carsyndylls {cress, and lily .^). 

Centory {Ccntaurea nigra, or 
Erythrcea Centaurium ?) . 

Clarey {Salvia Sclarea) . 

Comfery {Symphytum offici- 
nale). 

Coryawnder {Coriandrum sati- 
vum). 

Cowslippe {Pri7imla veris). 



Dytawnder {Lepidium lati- 
folium) . 

Egrimoyne {Agrimonia Eupa- 
toria) . 

Elysauwder {Smyrnium Olusa- 
trum) . 

Feldwort {Gentiana). 

Floscampi {Lychnis). 

Foxglove {Digitalis purpurea). 

Fynel {Fceniculum vulgare) . 

Garleke (Allium sativum). 

Gladyn {Iris). 

Gromel {Lithospermum offici- 
nale) . 

Growdyswyly {Senecio vul- 
garis) . 

Halsel tre {Corylus Avellena). 

Hawthorn {Cratcegus Oxyacan- 
tha). 

Henbane {Hyoscyamus niger). 

Herbe Ion {Hypericum perfo- 
ratum) . 

Herbe Robert {Geranium 
Robertianum) . 













p9^ fHf rf ^'^ fM.*/* t^.J :^ _, 



c 



( ..J 



"the feate of gardening," by ion gardener. 

The earliest original English treatise on Gardening. 
MS. c. 1440, Trinity College, Cambridge. 

To face page 64. 



EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE 



65 



Herbe Walter {cannot iden- 
tify)} 

Hertystonge {Scolopendrium 
vulgar e) . 

Holyhocke {AlthcBa rosea). 

Honysoke {Lonicera Pericly- 
menum) . 

Horehound [Marruhium vtd- 
gare) . 

Horsel {Inula helenium). 

Hyndeshall {? " Ambrosia." 
Teucrium scorodonia ?\. 

Langbefe {Helminthia echioides. 
Echium vulgar e). 

Lavyndull {Lavandula vera). 

Leke {Allium porrum). 

Letows {Laduca sativa). 

Lyly {Lilium candidum). 

Lyverwort {Anemone hepati- 
ca). 

Merege {Apium graveolens). 

Moderwort {Artemisia vulga- 
ris). 

Mouseer {Hieracium Pilo- 
sella) . 

Myntys {Mentha). 

Nepte {Nepeta Cataria, or a 
turnip) . 

Oculus Christi {Salvia ver- 
banaca) . 

Orage {Atriplex hortensis). 

Orpy {Sedum telephium). 



Ownyns and Oynet {Allium 
cepa) . 

Parrow {mistake for Yarrow). 

Pelyter {Parietaria officinalis). 

Percely {Petroselinum sati- 
vum). 

Pere {Pyrus communis garden 
varieties) . 

Peruynke {Vinca major and 
minor) . 

Primrole {Primida vulgaris) . 

Polypody {Polypodium vul- 
gar e) . 

Pympernold {Poterium San- 
guisorba) . 

Radysche {Raphanus sativus) . 

Redenay (Red Ray Lolium 
perenne). 

Rewe {Ruta graveolens) . 

Rose {Rosa, red and white). 

Rybwort {Plantago lanceolata). 

Saferowne {Crocus sativus). 

Sage {Salvia officinalis). 

Sanycle {Sanictda EuropcEa). 

Sauerey {Satureja hortensis). 

Scabyas {Scabiosa). 

Seueny {Brassica alba). 

Sowthrynwode {Artemisia Ab- 
rotanum) . 

Sperewort {Ranunculus Flam- 
mula) . 

Spynage {Spinacia oleracea). 



^ Written Herbe Wa.ter, which is the same as Walter (see 2 Henry VI., 
Act IV., s. i). The name occurs also in some MS. notes in a copy of the 
Aggregator Practicus al Simplicibus, and also together with Herb Robert 
and Herb Ion in a MS. Scientific Commonplace Book of the fifteenth 
century, belonging to the Rev. G. Henslow ; in John Bray's list of 
plants, Sloane, 282 (24), it is written Herba Waltm Herbe Water. All 
these MSS. contain the names of many of the plants in John Gardener's 
poem and Sloane MS. 1201. 



66 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Strowberys [Fragaria vesca) . Walwort {Sedum acre) . 

Stychewort {Stellaria Holo- Warmot {Artemisia Absin- 

stea) . thum) . 

Tansay {Tanacetum vulgare). Waterlyly [Nymphcea alba, or 
Totesayne [Hypericum Andro- Nuphar luteum). 

scBmum). Weybrede {Plantago major). 

Tuncarse {Lepidium sativum). Woderofe [Asperula odor aid). 

Tyme {Thymus Serpyllum). Wodesour {Oxalis Acetosella). 

Yaleiyan {Valeriana officinalis). Wurtys or Wortys {Brassica 
Verueyn {Verbena officinalis). oleracea). 

Violet {Viola odorata). Wyldtesyl {Dipsacus Fullo- 
Vynys and Vyne tre {Vitis num, or sylvestris). 

vinifera). Ysope {Hyssopus officinalis). 

List of herbs at the beginning of a book of cookery recipes, 
fifteenth century (Sloane MS. 1201) : 

Herbys necessary for a gardyn by letter. 

A. Alysaundre {Smyrnium Olusatrum), Avence, Astralogia 
rotunda {Aristolochia) , Astralogia longa, Alia, Arcachaff 
{Angelica.^), Artemesie mogwede, Annes {Pimpinella Anisum), 
Archangel {Lamium album). 

B. Borage, Betes {Beta vulgaris), Betyii, Basilican {Ocymum 
basilicum), Bugle, Burneti. 

C. Cabage, Chervell, Carewey, Cyves, Columbyn, Clarey, 
Colyaundr', Colewortf, Cartabus, Cressez, Cressez of Boleyii, 
Calamyntf, Camamytl', Ceterwort {? Ceterach officinarum). 

D. Daysez, Dytayii, Daundelyofi, Dragaunce {Arum Dra- 
cunculus), Dylle. 

E. Elena campana {Inula Helenium), Eufras {Euphrasia 
officinalis), Egrymoyii. 

F. Fenett, Foothistell, Fenecreke {Trigonella Fcenum- 
grcBCum) . 

G. Gromelt, Goldez {Calendula officinalis), Gyllofr' {Dian- 
thus Caryophyllus), Germaundr'. 

H. Hertez tonge, Horehound, Henbane. 

/. Isope, lertin, Iryngez {Eryngoes .^), herbe Ive {Plantago). 

K. Kykombre, yt. bereth apples {Cucumis sativus). 

L. Longdebeff, Lekez, Letuce, Love ache {Levisticum 



EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE 67 

officinale), Lympons, Lylle {lilium), Longwortz [Pulmonaria 
officinalis) . 

M. Mercury, Malowes, Mynt, Mageron, Mageron gentyle. 
Mandrake, Mylons. 

A^. Nept, Netteft rede, Nardus capistola. 

0. Orage, Oculus Christi, Oynons. 

P. P^fsely, Pelytor, Pelytor of Spayn, Piiliali royaft {Mentha 
Pulegium) , Vyper white, Pacy ence (Rumex patentia) , Popy whit' , 
Prymerose, Purselane, Philipendula. 

Q. Qvyncez. 

R. Rapes [Brassica Napus), Radyche, Rampsons [Allium 
ursinum) , Rapouncez [Campanula Ranunculus) , Rokettf [Hes- 
peris matronalis) , Rewe. 

5. Sauge, Saverey, Spynache, Sede-wale [Valeriana pyre- 
naica), Scalaceh [? Sinapis arvensis), Smalache [Apium graveo- 
lens), Sauce alone [Erysimum Alliaria), Selbestryne, Syves 
[Allium Schcenoprasum), Sorelt, Sowthistelt, Skabiose, SeHa, 
Stycadose [Lavandula Stcechas), Stanmarch [? Smyrnium 
Olusatrum) . 

T. Tyme, Tansey. 

V. Vyolettf, Wermode, Wormesede [Erysimum cheiran- 
thoides), Verveyii. 

Of the same Herbes for Potage. 

Borage, Langdebefe, Vyolettf, Malowes, Marcury, Daunde- 
lyoh Avence, Myntf , Sauge, Vercely, Goldes, Mageron, Fenett, 
Carawey, Rednettylt, Oculus Christi, Daysys, Chervett, Lekez, 
Colewortes, Rapez, Tyme, Cyves, Betes, Alysaundr', Letyse, 
Betayh, Coluwbyh, Alia, Astralogia rotunda, Astralogia longa, 
Basillicaw, Dylle, Deteyn, Egrymon, Hertcstong, Radiche, 
White pyper, Cabagez, Sedewale, Spynache, Cohaundr' 
Foothistyll, Orage, Cartabus, Lympons, Nepte, Clarey, 
Pacience. 



Of the same Herbes for Sauce. 

Yleites tonge, Soretl, Petytory, Pelytory of Spayh, Detey, 
VyolettC, Fercely, Myntf. 

5—2 



68 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Also of the same Herbes for the copp. 

Cost, Costmary, Sauge, Isope, Rose mary, Gyttofr', Goldez, 
Clarey, Mageron, Rne.^ 

Also of the same Herbes for a Salade. 

Buddws of Stanmarche, Vyolette flourez, P^ycely, Redmyntf , 
Syves, Cresse of Boleyfi, Purselan, Ramsons, Calamyntf , Pnme 
Rose buddus, Dayses, Rapounses, Daundelyon, Rokette, Red 
nettett, Borage fiourez, Croppus of Red Feneft, Selbestryfi, 
Chykynwede. 

Also Herbez to Stylle. 

Endyve, Red Rose, Rose mary, Dragans, Skabiose, Ewfrace, 
Wermode, Mogwede, Betayn, Wylde Tansey, Sauge, Isope, 
Ersesmart {Polygonum Hydropiper). 

Also Herbes fo[r] Savour and beaute. 

Gyllofr' gentyle, Magerofi gentyle, Basyle, Palma Christi, 
Stycadose, Meloncez, Arcachaffe, Scalaceley, Philyppendula, 
Popyroyatt", Germaundr', Cowsloppus of Jerusalem, Verveyfi, 
Dyll, Seynt Mar' Garlek.^ 

Also Rotys for a gardyh. 

Persenepez, Turnepez, Radyche, Karettes, Galyngale, Tryn- 
gez, Saffrofi. 

^ Rue is added in fainter ink. 

^ " Seynt Mar' Garlek " is added by another hand. 



CHAPTER V 

EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 

" Sure gates, sweete gardens, stately galleries 
Wrought with faire pillowes and fine imageries ; 
All those (O pitie !) now are turned to dust 
And overgrowne with black oblivion's rust." 

Spenser : Ruins of Time. 

TOWARDS the end of the fifteenth century fresh influences 
were brought to bear on the nation, and consequently 
numerous changes set in. The marriage of Edward IV.'s 
sister with the Duke of Burgundy, and through that aUiance 
the increased intercourse with Flanders, led to many alterations 
in social life. The comparative peace which followed the 
termination of the Wars of the Roses encouraged a new style of 
domestic architecture, and comfortable red -brick houses suc- 
ceeded the old castles. The gardens were no longer of necessity 
confined within the embattled castle walls. The houses in the 
new style were not built on the tops of hills, but usually on 
lower lying ground, and were surrounded by a moat. There 
was some httle space within the moat devoted to a garden, or 
a few plants were placed in the courtyard. The prolonged 
peace diminished the necessity of keeping all property within 
the protecting lines of the moat, and thus the custom came in of 
having gardens beyond it. With this additional space— for 
there was frequently more room inside the moat than there had 
been within castle walls, even if the garden were not made out- 
side — there was more scope for play of fancy, and before long 
several changes in design came in. 

One of the first innovations was the railed bed— flower-beds 
enclosed by low fences of trellis-work. These trellis railings 

69 



70 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

came into fashion just before Tudor times, but they remained 
in vogue for many years. When, in 1533, Henry VIII. made 
great alterations in the gardens of Hampton Court, flower-beds 
of oblong form were made in the King's new garden. They 
were surrounded by rails painted green and white — the Tudor 
colours — as may be seen in the original picture of Henry VIII., 
a portion of which is here reproduced. In the Hampton 
Court expenses, 1533, numerous entries refer to the purchase of 
these rails. 

" Paid to [Henry Blankeston, of London, painter] for the like painting 
of 96 flat pownchens with white and green, and in oil, wrought with 
antyke a both sides bearing up the rails in the said garden at i2d. the 
piece, £^ i6s. — Also paid to the same for like painting of 960 yards in 
length of rail in the said garden with white and green, and in oil, price 
the yard, 6d., £2/^."^ 

These items are repeated with variations ; the posts 
and rails were painted " white and green in antyke oiled 
colours," and " flat posts " occur in the place of " flat pown- 
chens." 

Another novelty introduced in the first years of the Tudor 
period, and soon a conspicuous feature in all gardens, was 
topiary work, " opus topiarum " — that is to say, quaintly cut 
trees and shrubs. This art, although new in England, was of 
very ancient origin, having been known to the Romans. But 
it is not until this date that it is mentioned as being practised 
in England. The new idea found great favour in this country, 
and much time and trouble were expended in producing these 
monsters in trees, and the taste remained in fashion for more 
than two centuries. Leland, in his Itinerary, in the early years 
of the sixteenth century, mentions a place where striking speci- 
mens of the work might be seen : " at Uskelle village, about a 
mile from Tewton, is a goodly orchard with walks opere 
topiario ;" and at " Wresehill Castle " he also describes an 
orchard with " mounts opere topiario writhen about in degrees 
like turnings of cokilshells to come to the top without payne." 
This leads me to speak of yet another peculiarity which was 
much developed about this time, the " mount," like this one 

^ Exchequer, Treasury of Receipt, Miscellaneous Books, No. 237. 
This is a large book of Expenses at Hampton Court, 24th Henry VHI. 




THE MOUNT, ROCKINGHAM. 




OLD YEW WALK AND MOUNT, ROCKINGHAM. 



To face page 70. 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 71 

at Wressel Castle, where Leland saw the cut trees. In the 
thirteenth century there were made in some of the monasteries 
" mounds " of earth against the garden- walls, to enable the 
inmates to peer over them into the outer world. During the 
following centuries, " mounds " or " mounts," of simple con- 
struction, were frequently to be found in gardens, but in 
Tudor times the " mount " became a much more important 
accessory than formerly. They were usually made of earth 
covered with fruit or other trees. Mounts were generally 
thrown up in " divers corners " of the orchard, and were 
ascended by " stairs of precious workmanship," or a spiral path 
planted on either side with shrubs, cut in quaint shapes, or with 
sweet-smelling herbs and flowers. At Rockingham there re- 
mains a specimen of one form of mount. A great terraced 
mound of earth, covered with turf and a few trees, is raised 
against a part of the high wall which surrounds the garden, and 
behind which the keep formerly stood. From the top of this 
the eye ranges across the garden with quaintly cut yew-trees, 
over a magnificent view of the open country beyond ; thus the 
mount served in early times as a lookout or watch-tower. If 
the garden or orchard happened to be situated in a park, and 
herds of deer browsed close to its walls, the mount then became 
useful as a point from which one " myghte shoot a bucke."^ 
The top of the mount was often surmounted by an arbour, 
either of trellis-work and creepers, or a more substantial build- 
ing. Probably the finest specimen of this kind of ornament 
was the " mount " at Hampton Court, and from various sources 
a very good idea of what it was like can be formed. It was 
situated at the southern end of the " King's New Garden," 
which was made in 1533, at which time a gardener named 
Edward Gryffyn superintended the work. The mount was 
raised on a brick foundation, as there were payments made to 
" John Dallen of London, bricklayer," for " laying of 256,000 
of brick upon the walls about the new garden, betwixt the 
King's lodgings and Thames, and the foundations of the mount 
standing by Thames, taking for every 1,000 I4d., by con- 
vention £14. i8s. 8d." The earth was then piled up and planted 
with quicksets. The sum of 54s, 8d. was paid to Lawrence 
^ Lawson, New Orchard. 



72 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Vyncent and John Gaddisby of Kyngston, for four loads of 
quicksets, every load containing thirty hundred sets of them 
" to set about the mount by the King's new garden." Another 
entry refers to the purchase of ash poles " to make rails to bind 
the quicksets," and " two bundles of wyWy roddes to bind " 
them ; and " three pear trees to set in the mount." The most 
elaborate part of the mount was the arbour. The " South 
arbour " seems to have been the one on the mount, but mention 
is also made in the accounts of a " West arbour," which was 
apparently very similar, as the same things were bought for 
both, and payment made to " lohn a gwylder smith " " for 300 
of broddes serving for the fretts in the roof of the south herber 
at the mount I2d. the 100, 3s.," and to Galyon Hone, the 
King's glazier, several sums were paid, of which the following 
is a sample : " Item in the mount in the garden 48 lights, 
every light in the upper story containing 4I foot, in the nether 
story every light containing 4I foot 3 inches, which amount in 
all (to) 211 foot at 5d. the foot, £4. 7s. iid." This gives one 
some idea of how large the arbour was, and how carefully it 
was made. It appears, furthermore, from the accounts that 
the " south herber " was connected with the west one by a 
gallery running along the wall, which was made of wooden 
poles and trellis-work. Such galleries were marked character- 
istics of late fifteenth and early sixteenth century gardens, and 
designs for them are found in some old works ; the best of these 
being in the Hortus Floridus of Crispin de Pas (or Passe), 
which was translated into English in 1615. They existed in 
Hampton Court before Henry VIII. made his alterations 
there, and are thus referred to in Cavendish's metrical life 
of Wolsey : 

" My galleries were fayre, both large & longe 
To walk in them when that it liked me beste. 

With arbours & alleys so pleasant & so dulse 
The pestilent airs with flavours to repulse." 

I do not know of a single example of a gallery or arbour, of 
this description, in existence. They were made of perishable 
material, such as wood-trellis planted with creepers, vines, roses. 



n 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 73 

or honeysuckle ; therefore even those which were not pulled 
down purposely, must have been long ago destroyed by time. 
And it is also much to be regretted that few, if any, examples 
are to be found in English illuminated books, although plenty 
of pictures occur in foreign MSS. of this period, especially 
French and Flemish. The scarcity of Enghsh examples is no 
doubt partly owing to the destruction of religious books at the 
time of the Refonnation. They are found chiefly in the 
calendars at the beginning of missals, or Books of Hours, 
where the miniature for the month of May is frequently a 
garden, or the garden of the day is introduced, in the illustra- 
tion of some sacred subject. The gallery ran along the outer 
wall of the garden, the wall forming one side, posts of wood in 
a series of arches the other, while the pathway between the 
wall and the posts was covered in, either with creepers and 
wood-work, or something more substantial, and affording 
better shelter. Sometimes the gallery followed the wall 
round three sides, but it seems to have been the more 
usual custom to have it on one side only, and it frequently 
afforded a sheltered walk from the house to the arbour or 
mount. 

Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, during the first years 
of the sixteenth century, began to lay out very extensive 
gardens at Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, but he was accused 
of treason, and hurried to the scaffold before carrying out his 
plan. Among the State papers of the time, May, 1521, there 
is a survey of his lands, and the following extracts appear in 
it, under the heading of " gardens," and are illustrative of the 
fashion of galleries. " On the south side of the inner ward [of 
the castle] is a proper garden, and about the same a goodly 
galley conveying above and beneath from the principal 
lodgings, both to the chapel and parish church. The utter 
(outer) part of the said gallery being of stone embattled, and 
the inner part of timber covered with slate. On the east side 
of the said castle or manor is a goodly garden to walk in, 
closed with high walls, embattled. The conveyance thither 
is by the gallery above and beneath, and by other privy ways. 
Besides the same privy garden is a large and a goodly orchard, 
full of young graffes well loaden with fruit, many roses, and 



74 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

other pleasures. And in the same orchard, are many goodly 
alleys to walk in openly. And round about the same orcharde 
is conveyed on a good height other goodly alleys with roosting 
places, covered thoroughly with white thorne and hasel. And 
without the same, on the utter part, the said orchard is enclosed 
with sawin pale {sawn palings) and without that ditches and 
quickset hedges." ... " From out of the said orchard, are 
divers posterns in sundry places at pleasure to go and enter 
into a goodly park newly-made." The house and gardens were 
left to fall into ruins, after Queen Elizabeth's time, and not 
a trace of the old garden remains. -"^ 

Another example of an arbour or " roosting-place " was one 
made for Elizabeth of York. " lo July 1502 Item payed to 
Henry Smith clerc of the Castle of Wyndsor for money by him 
payed to a certain labourer to make an herbour in the little 
park of Wyndsor for a banket for the Queen iiijs. viijd." 
Again, in the eighteenth year of Henry VII., five shilhngs 
were paid for making an arbour at Baynarde's Castle, in 
London.^ 

The ordinary arbour was still like those described in earlier 
times by Chaucer, with a turfed seat, and trellis covered with 
climbing plants. One is thus spoken of by a poet of the Tudor 
period^ : 

" The clowdis gan to clere, the myst was rarifiid 
In an herber I saAv, brought where I was, 
There birdis on the brere sange on euery syde : — 
With alys ensandid about in compas 
The bankis enturfid with singular solas 
Enrailed with rosers, and vinis engrapid ; — 
It was a new comfort of sorrowis escapid." 

Other resting-places were arranged along the garden-walls, 
in the form of shady nooks and corners with grass banks to 
serve as seats, such as that of which More, in his Utopia, 
makes mention, when he writes : " We all went to my house, 
and entering into the garden, sat down on a green bank, and 

* The outer castle wall alone remained, and it was rebuilt and the 
present gardens laid out about fifty years ago by the father of the 
present owner, Mr. Stafford Howard. 

^ Wardrobe Accounts. ^ Skelton, Garlande of Lam ell. 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 75 

entertained one another in discourse." The arbour or garden- 
house was sometimes of brick, or stone, built Hke a turret into 
the wall ; an early example of arbours like this exists at Loseley, 
in Surrey. There were originally four houses, one at each 
corner of the garden-wall, and three of these remain. Another 
interesting garden of this date is at the Palace, Much Hadham, 
in Hertfordshire, which, for many hundred years, belonged to 
the Bishops of London. It was also the dwelling-place of 
Katherine, widow of Henry V., after her marriage with Owen 
Tudor, and it was here that Edmund, father of Henry VH., 
was born. The garden at the present day is surrounded on 
two sides by a wall, while the other side is protected by a high 
yew hedge, three yards thick. 

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, a new flower-bed 
was adopted, as well as the straight-railed beds. This was 
the " knotted bed," or knot. They were laid out in curious 
and complicated geometrical patterns. By the year 1520 the 
style was in common use, and most of our English gardens 
could boast of some kind of novel knotted bed. Cavendish 
writes of Hampton Court, it was " so enknotted it cannot be 
expressed." The earth in the knots was either raised a little, 
being kept in its place by borders of bricks and tiles, or, as was 
more often the case, it was on the same level as the paths, 
and then the divisions were made with box, thrift, and so on. 
Generally the beds were planted inside their thick margins, 
with ornamental flowers or small shrubs, somewhat as " carpet 
beds " are now laid out ; but, sometimes, instead of plants, 
they were filled with variously coloured earths. In the house- 
hold accounts of the Duke of Buckingham, in 1502, there is 
an entry of 3s. 4d. being paid to " John Wynde, gardener, 
for diligence in making knottes in the Duke's garden." And 
in the same year, among the accounts of the fifth Earl of 
Northumberland, a gardener is mentioned as being employed 
to " attend hourly in the garden for setting of erbis, and 
clypping of knottes, and sweeping the said garden cleaner 
hourly." The designs of these knots were very varied. They 
wei;e either geometrical patterns, or fanciful shapes of animals ; 
the intricate geometric designs being evidently the more 
popular, as they occur most frequently in books. (See illus- 



76 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

tration.) The other style is described in the following 
poem :^ 

" Then we went to the garden glorious, 
Like to a place of pleasure most solacious : 
With Flora painted and wrought curiously 
In divers knottes of marveylous greatnes. 
Rampande lyons stode by wonderfly, 
Made all of herbes, with dulset swetenes, 
With many dragons, of marveylous likenes 
Of diuers floures, made full craftely 
By Flora couloured, with colours sundrye." 

The following are some of the flowers that were cultivated 
in these knottes, or in the borders, in Tudor times, that are 
mentioned by contemporary writers : Acanthus, asphodel, 
auricula, amaranthe, " or blites," bachelor's buttons, corn- 
flowers, or " bottles," cowslips, daffodils, daisies, " French 
broome," gilliflowers (three varieties), hollyhock, iris, jasmine, 
lavender, lilies, lily of the valley, marigold, narcissus (yellow 
and white), pansies, or heartsease, peony, periwinkle, poppy, 
primrose, rocket, roses, rosemary, snapdragon, stock gilliflowers, 
sweet William, wall-flowers, winter-cherry, violet, and besides 
these, other sweet-smelling herbs, such as mint and marjoram. 
Having now gone through some of the principal features of 
a Tudor garden, the railed beds, knottes, the mount, arbours, 
and galleries, it would be well to consider not only what gardens 
were made, but what happened to the old gardens in existence 
during the first part of this period. In an earlier chapter some- 
thing has been said of the position held by the monastery 
gardens throughout the land. Now that the years of the 
Reformation have been reached, so far as this great movement 
affected gardens, it is necessary to glance at its progress. The 
work of the visitation and then the suppression of the monas- 
teries was begun in 1534. The greater ones were first attacked, 
and the lesser ones followed. The work was carried on rapidly ; 
in the northern district in 1536, eighty-eight monasteries were 
reported on in a fortnight ;^ two hundred and two were sup- 
pressed or surrendered between 1538-40. At the time of the 

^ The Historie of Graunde Amoure and la hell Pucell, called the Pastime 
of Pleasure, by Stephen Hawes, ed. 1554. 
^ Gasquet, Henry VIII. and Eng. Man. 




RAILED FLOWER-BED. 

From " Roman de la Rose," Fvcnch MS. c. 143O. 
B. M. E^erton 2022. 




PART OF A PICTURE AT HAMPTON 

COURT SHOWING THE RAILED 

BEDS AND BEASTS. 



Aproperknottobf ofTinthe quartcrofaCnrdcn, or other- 
wife, -is ihcrcisruHiciainoomc. 




KNOT. 

From " The Gardener's Labyrinth;' by "Didymous Mountain," 1537. 

To face page 76. 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 77 

Dissolution there were over seven hundred religious houses 
scattered all over the kingdom. We cannot say that each of 
these possessed a garden, as some were in towns, in spaces too 
confined, and some Orders did not devote any of their attention 
to agriculture. The Benedictines and Cistercians predominated 
in numbers, and they were, for the most part, large landowners, 
farmers of their own land, and skilled in horticulture. But 
of the gardens which surrounded Fountains, Jervaulx, or 
Netley, Glastonbury, St. Albans, or Whitby, and many another 
fine abbey and stately priory, nothing remains. In some 
instances mention is made of the gardens by the officers of the 
Crown, who carried out the visitations and appropriated 
everything of value. At Oxford, they regretted that the Austin • 
Friars had felled all their trees, but the Franciscans had 
" good lands, woods, and a pretty garden." The Cistercians 
of Waverley were very poor at the time, and the Abbot was 
granted leave " to survey his husbandry whereupon consisteth 
the wealth of his monastery." Few traces of old monastery 
gardens are left. At Westminster there was a fine garden, 
celebrated for its damson trees, and a garden by the Infirmary 
where the sick monks could take the air. Part of this remains 
in the garden belonging to the College, but some portion of it 
was built over at the beginning of the last century, when the 
new College buildings were erected. When Elizabeth came 
to the throne, she sent for Abbot Feckenham, who had been 
reinstated in the Abbey of Westminster during Mary's reign. 
He was planting elms in his garden in the part now known as 
Dean's Yard, when he received the summons, and finished his 
work before he would attend on the Queen. The Abbot ended 
his days in captivity, and his abbey was soon after transformed 
into a College, but some of his elm trees, or their successors, 
remain to this day. 

That which has most often survived destruction, to find a 
place in a modern garden, on the site of some old cloister, is 
the fish-pond, although, strictly speaking, it did not always 
form part of a monastery garden. But it was found useful, 
and has frequently been spared even by the landscape gardener, 
who would rather alter than destroy it. At Cirencester, the 
present parish church is a fine building, but the abbey church 



78 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

beside it, in times past, was so infinitely larger as quite to 
eclipse it. Yet the entire abbey has so completely disappeared 
that the only trace of monastic times, in the grounds of the house, 
built on the same spot, is a small piece of water, the remains of the 
fish-ponds. Such relics are to be seen in every part of England. 
At Hurley-on-Thames the monks' fish stews are still in exist- 
ence, while at Bisham Abbey, only a mile distant, the garden 
is surrounded on three sides by a moat, a vestige of monkish 
days. At Hackness, in Yorkshire, the monks' ponds have been 
transformed into the present lake, but at Newstead Abbey, 
Nottingham, they are untouched. There is a stew, over- 
shadowed by old yews, and a piece of water undoubtedly a 
survival of the Black Friars, a brass eagle lectern having been 
found in its depths, full of valuable deeds relating to the 
monastery, hidden there by the friars at the time of their 
dissolution. At Hatton Grange, in Shropshire, on the site 
of a cell of Buildwas Abbey, the ponds also remain as originally 
made by the monks. There are four pools, still bearing their 
old names — the Abbot's, Purgatory, Hell, and the Bath Pools. 
They are in sequence, separated by broad dams of earth, and 
are dug deep into the ground, with steep banks. Thus, although 
the original gardens have vanished, the monastery lands were 
granted to the great famihes of the day, and since they passed 
into secular hands, stately houses have been built, and beautiful 
gardens, though of a totatlly different character, have been 
made, and now adorn what once were the precincts of the old 
abbeys and priories. Woburn, Welbeck, Burghley, Syon, 
Battle, Beaulieu, Ramsey, Audley End, and many others, are 
among the number. 

The Earl of Surrey made extensive gardens round the house 
he built on the site of St. Leonard's Priory, near Norwich, which 
he called Mount Surrey. About this time the closing of some 
of the common lands caused some considerable riots, and in 
1549 all the trees in the appleyards at Mount Surrey were 
destroyed by the rebels, and used for making tents and huts. 
This was one of the earliest of important gardens laid out on 
the site of a religious house, and it was not until a succeeding 
generation, when the taste for gardening was still more universal, 
that many others of the new proprietors followed this example. 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 7^ 

We have already had occasion to refer to Hampton Court in 
describing the characteristics of Tudor gardens. There are 
such full accounts left of the expenses incurred in making these 
gardens, both under the direction of Cardinal Wolsey and of 
Henry VUL, that, although the exact plan is unknown, a 
very fair idea of what they were like may be gathered. The 
land which Wolsey covered with the building, gardens, and 
park, consisted of two thousand acres. In the south-west 
corner of this ground stood the old manor house, and round this 
the Cardinal laid out gardens and orchards, separated by brick 
wall? and, beyond the walls, a park. He retained part of the 
m? >r house garden, for it is noted several times as " the old 
garden." John Chapman was head-gardener at this time, 
and remained in that position, with a salary of £12 a year, when 
the King took possession of the disgraced Cardinal's lands in 
1529. The gardens were soon after greatly enlarged. A new 
orchard was made to the north of the old gardens, and pears, 
damsons, medlars, cherries, apples, cucumbers, and melons 
were grown, and forty- three bushels of strawberries were planted 
at one time. There was a flower-garden which supplied the 
Queen with roses, and a kitchen garden, where " herbes for 
the king's table " were grown. A part of these gardens was 
destroyed when the new ones were made in 1533. The ground 
was then manured and carefully measured out into several 
plots, each surrounded by a brick wall. The largest plot was 
the King's new garden, the site of which is now called the 
" Privy Garden." In this there were gravel paths, and little 
raised mounds with sundials on them, and between the paths, 
railed beds cut in the grass . The rails were trained with roses, 
and yew, cypress, or juniper trees planted in the centre of each 
bed ; while along the walls were apple, pear, and damson trees, 
and under them " violets, prymroses, sweet williams, gillifer 
shps, mynt, and other sweete flowers," and this garden con- 
tained the mount and arbour. Another plot was the " Pond 
Garden," which merely seems to have contained the ponds, 
and was only decorated with the " beestes," as there is no 
mention of flowers being planted in it. There was the " little 
garden," of which not much is known, except that sixty-seven 
apple-trees were bought for it from " William gardener of 



8o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

London merchant, at 6d. the piece." These " beestes " or 
carved animals holding " vanes," and the brass dials, seem to 
have been put in every part of the gardens and orchards ; and, 
although other gardens of this date probably had such decora- 
tions, they appear to have been a more marked feature at 
Hampton Court. The beasts were set at intervals along the 
railed beds, and about the mount and all round the ponds, and 
the entries concerning them in the accounts are very frequent.^ 

" Also paid to Bryse Auguston, of Westminster, clockmaker, for 
making of 20 brazen dials for the king's new garden at 4s. ^d. the piece, 
;^4. 6s. 8d. — For making of bestes in timber for the king's new garden — 
paid to Edmund More, of Kyngston, freemason, for cutting, making 
and carving of 159 of the king's and the queen's beestes standing in the 
king's new garden at 20s. the piece . . . ^159.' 

(1530) " Item dieu to Anthony Transylyon, of Westminster, clock- 
maker, for seven dials of him bought which are bestowed in the privy 
orchard, at 4s. 4d. the piece, 30s. 4d. — Joiners setting up the bestes 
upon the posts in the privy orchard, Henry Currer, at 8d. by day, 4s. ; 
John Carpenter, at 6d. by day, 3s. Payments for painting the king's 
festes ( =bestes) in the privy orchard . . . some holding ' fanes ' { = vanes) 
with the king's arms." 

(1534) " For gilding and painting of the beasts in the king's new 
garden — To Henry Blankston, of London (various sums for) 11 harts, 
13 lions, 16 greyhounds, 10 hinds, 17 dragons, 9 bulls, 13 antelopes, 
15 griffins, 19 leberdes {= leopards), 11 yallys (2 jails occur elsewhere), 
9 rams, and the lion on top of the mount, also for the vanes." 

(1535) " Item in the said barbers ( —south and west arbours) is set, 25 
badges of the king's and queen's, price the piece 3s. £'^. 15s. Item in 
the same barbers is set, 8 arms of the king's and queen's, price the 
piece 4s. 32s. Paid to Harry Corrant, of Kingston, carver, for making 
and entayling 38 of the kinge's and queene's beastes in freestone, bearing 
shields with the kinge's arms, and the queene's, that is to say four 
dragons, six tigers, 5 greyhounds, 5 harts, 4 badgers, serving to stand 
about the ponds in the pond yard, at 26 shillings the pece. ;^4g. 8s." 

The fountain in the " pond garden " at the present day is prob- 
ably a survival of the " pond yard," in which so many beasts 
were placed. In Henry VIII. 's time they were supplied with 
water in rather a curious way, as there are entries in the 
accounts of charges for " labourers ladyng of water out of ye 
Temmes to fyll the pondes in the night tymes." 

There were several other royal gardens, and items with 

^ 25 Henry VIII. (1533). Exchequer, Treasury of the Receipts, Mis- 
cellaneous Books, No. 238. 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 81 

reference to things bought for them, or gardeners' wages, 
occur in the Privy Purse expenses of Henry VIII. for 1530-32, 
and Princess Mary, 1536-37. Greenwich is frequently men- 
tioned in these accounts, as it was one of the favourite summer 
resorts of Henry and his daughter, and the scene of many 
jousts and May-Day revels. The payments were chiefly made 
to the head-gardener, named Walsh, for labourers' wages for 
" weding and delving," and " ordering in the garden." The 
gardens had probably been laid out when the park was enclosed 
and the palace was built by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 
early in the reign of Henry VI., when it went by the name of 
" Placentia," or " Plaisance." The head-gardener there in 
1519 was Lovell, and he received 60s. 8d. yearly. A little 
later he was transferred to the Richmond garden, and his 
salary raised to £3 a quarter. He supphed the King's table 
" with damsons, grapes, filberts, peaches, apples, and other 
fruits, and flowers, roses, and other sweet waters." 

There seem to have been two gardens at BeauUeu, or New- 
hail, the " smalle gardin " and " the grete." The small appears 
to have been the kitchen-garden, and furnished the " King's 
table " with " herbes and rootes, and strawberries, artichokes, 
lettuces, cucumbers, and sallet herbes." The keeper of the 
great garden in 1532 was one John Rede.^ 

The gardens within the walls of the Tower of London and 
at Baynarde's Castle were kept up in Henry VIII. 's time. 
Frequent entries in the accounts show that there were royal 
gardens at Wanstead (where Robert Pury was gardener, 1532) ,^ 
Westminster, Waltham, Woodstock, and Oatlands, but they 
were probably not on so grand a scale as the more favourite 
resorts of the King. Windsor received less attention than the 
other royal gardens during this reign. The gardens at Windsor 
have now so completely changed that even the site of the old 
garden cannot be identified with certainty. There is an account 
by an eye-witness of Louis de Bruye's reception, in 1472, by 
Edward IV. at Windsor. They go out hunting, and return 
late in the evening. " Bey that tyme yt was nere night, yett 
the King showed hym his garden & vineyard of pleasure & so 
turned into the Castel agayne." This garden and vineyard 
^ State Papers, Henry VIII. R.O. - Ibid. 

6 



82 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

probably remained unaltered in Henry VIII.'s reign, as there 
is no mention of changes being made there. The gardens at 
York Place, the Whitehall of later times, had been laid out by 
Wolsey with great taste and care, and this place, Hke Hampton 
Court, was also given over to the King. 

Towards the end of his reign, Henry VIII., having com- 
pleted his alterations at Hampton Court, turned his attention 
to laying-out and beautifying the grounds at Nonsuch, near 
Ewell, in Surrey.^ He purchased the lands of Cuddington, in 
1538, and there built a palace— 

" Which no equal has in art or fame ; 
Britons deservedly do Nonsuche name." 

Another contemporary writer, describing the place, says of 
it : " The Palace itself is so encompassed with parks, full of 
deer, delicious gardens, groves ornamented with trelhs work, 
cabinets of verdure, and walks so embowered by trees, that it 
seems to be a place pitched upon by Pleasure herself to dwell 
in along with Health."^ Henry VIII. never quite completed 
Nonsuch, but it was held for a time by Henry FitzAlan, Earl 
of Arundel, who continued to carry out the King's designs. 
Queen Ehzabeth, Anne, Queen of James I., and Henrietta 
Maria, all paid visits to the place, but did not stay there for 
long. The Parliamentary survey of the palace and gardens, 
made in 1650, shows there were several walled gardens, divided 
by thick thorn hedges, also alleys, a wilderness, and privy 
garden, and a large kitchen-garden. There was also a terrace 
in front of the house, and a " handsome bowling-green." The 
whole was rather ItaHan in style, with many fountains and 
statues. Charles II. gave the place to the Duchess of Cleve- 
land, who pulled it down, and the destruction of this once 
magnificent palace was completed by her grandson, the 
Duke of Grafton, who cut down the trees and destroyed the 
park.^ 

While such progress was being made in the decoration and 

^ Minister's Accounts, 31-32 Henry VIII., No. 10. Sir Ralph Sadler, 
steward of the manor, received 4d. a day for the custody of " Gardin- 
orum, Pomariorum et ortorum." 

^ Nichols, Progress of Queen Elizabeth. 

^ Camden's Britannia, ed. Gough, 1806. 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 83 

laying-out of the flower-garden, the fruit and kitchen gardens 
were not altogether neglected. Besides such fruits as were 
already in common use, others were introduced, and those 
indigenous in the country were improved. The strawberry was 
largely planted, and carefully cultivated : 

" If frost do continue take this for a lawe, 
The strawberies look to be covered with strawe 
Laid overly trim, upon crotchis and bows 
And after uncovered as weather allows."^ 

From the following verse, in September's husbandrie, it is clear 
where the strawberry-plants were procured : 

" Wife unto thy garden and set me a plot 
With strawbery rootes of the best to be got. 
Such growing abroade, among thornes in the wood, 
Wei chosen and picked proove excellent good." 

It was not only for humble folk that wild-strawberry roots were 
gathered, for, in the oft-quoted Hampton Court Accounts, 
several entries occur of money paid for strawberry-roots, brought 
from the woods for the King's garden.^ 

The raspberry had until this period been more or less ignored, 
and even now seems not to have been very generally grown. 
Turner, in 1548, says of " Rubus ideus in Englishe raspeses or 
hyndberies . . . growe most plentuously in the woddes in east 
Freseland . . . they growe also in certayne gardines of Eng- 
lande." He also says of them : " The taste of it is soure." 
The gooseberry, which does not appear in earlier gardens, was 
now grown. It was planted in some of Henry VIII. 's gardens 
in 1516. Turner calls it " a groser bushe, a goosebery bushe," 
and says of it : " It groweth only that I have sene in England, 
in gardines, but I have sene it in Germany abrode in the fieldes 
amonge other bushes." This passage is curious, as the subject 
has frequently been discussed, whether the gooseberry is an 

^ Tusser, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. 

^ " Emptions of strowbery roots violettes and primerose roots for the; 
new garden — also paid to Ales Brewer and Margaret Rogers for gather- 
ing of 34 bushels of strowberry roots, primerose and violettes at 3d. the 
bushel, 8s. 6d. Item to Matthew Garrett of Kyngston for setting 
of the said rootes and flowers by the space of 20 days at 3d. the 
day, 5s." 

6-2 



84 



A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



indigenous plant in this country, 
are to be planted in September : 



Tusser remarks that they 



" The Barbery, Respis, and Gooseberry too 
Looke now to be planted as other things doo. 
!" The Goosebery, Respis, and Roses, al three 

With strawberies vnder them trimly agree." 

The greatest addition to the number of cultivated fruits was 
the apricot, which was certainly introduced before the middle 
of the sixteenth century, probably by Henry VIII.'s gardener. 
Wolf, about 1524. Turner mentions it in both his works under 
Malus Armeniaca, and gives Abrecok, or Abricok, as the 
English name, though he maintains that " an hasty peche is a 
better and a fitter name for it. But so that the tre be well 
knowen, I pase not gretely what name it is knowen by." The 
reason he gives for his name is that the fruit ripens so much 
earlier than the peach. The word " apricot " implies the same 
idea, being derived from the Latin prcecoqua, or proecocca. He 
says, in 1548, " We have very fewe of these trees as yet," and 
in 155 1, " I have sene many trees of thys kynde in Almany, 
and som in England." In the beautiful old garden at Little- 
cote, in Berkshire, there are two apricot-trees which still bear 
fruit, supposed to have been planted when the tree was first 
introduced into this country. 

Tusser, 1573, gives a list of fruits to be set or removed in 
January, and it includes Apricots, or Apricocks, as he calls them. 

The following is his list : 



I. 


Apple-trees of all sorts. 


II. 


Grapes, white and red. 


2. 


Apricocks. 


12. 


Greene or grasse plums. 


3. 


Barberies. 


13. 


Hurtillberies.^ 


4. 


Boollesse, black and white. 


14. 


Medlars or marles. 


5- 


Cheries, red and black. 


15- 


Mulberie. 


6. 


Chestnuts. 


16. 


Peaches, white and red. 


7- 


Cornet plums. ^ 


17- 


Peares of all sorts. 


8. 


Damsens, white and black. 


18. 


Perare plums, ^ black and 


9- 


Filbeards, red and white. 




yellow. 


10. 


Goose beries. 


19. 


Quince-trees. 




- = cornel p um =cornel cherries. 


^ =whortlebenies. 




* =pear-plum. 







Soft inib t wit* tk9vt,t» fain 

0hu miniatmt ; t Una iitta « 



Gij^n<ai»(;i! 



J\. 







ltH**<>- rJt*i<i'l f-^»-S~S^**»»»*** i^ 



TOOLS USED IN GRAFTING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 




APRICOT-TREES ON OLD GARDEN WALL, LITTLECOTE. 



To face page 84. 



n 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 85 



20. 


Respis. 26. 


Wardens, white and red, 


21. 


Reisons. 27. 


Wheat plums. 


22. 


Small nuts. 28. 


Now set ye may 


23- 


Strawberies, red and white. 


the box and bay. 


24. 


Seruice-trees. 


Haithorne and prim, 


25. 


Walnuts. 


for clothes trim. 



It cannot be proved that red currants had a place in gardens 
before this time, as they are never mentioned as such ; even 
Gerard, in 1597, does not give them under that name, but 
describes them as a very small kind of gooseberry without 
" prickles," of a perfect red colour. But it seems that some 
sort of currant is intended by " Reisons " in this hst. 

Tusser goes on in December's husbandrie to describe how 
the trees should be planted in the orchard : 

" Good fruit and good plentie doth well in the loft, 
then make thee an orchard and cherish it oft : 
For plant or for stock laie aforehand to cast, 
but set or renioove it er Christmas be past. 
Set one fro other full fortie f oote wide, 

to stand as he stood is a part of his pride." 

There were not many other changes in the orchards. Wardens 
still held a prominent place among pears, and costards among 
apples. The peach had not improved. Turner speaks of trees 
abroad, and goes on to say : " The peche is no great tre in 
England that I could se — the apples are soft and fiesshy when 
they are rype, something hory without." Among the Privy 
Purse expenses of Henry VIII., Mr. Long's gardener is specially 
mentioned as giving a present of peaches to the King, who at 
various other times received gifts of cherries, apples, pears, 
wardens, quinces, medlars, damsons, filberts, and melons. 

It was only the large landowners who indulged in a garden 
specially set apart for flowers and pleasure. The garden of 
every small manor and farmhouse in the kingdom was essen- 
tially for use. Fitzherbert, in his Book of Husbandry , 1534, 
enumerates the general duties of a wife, among which he does 
not forget the garden : " And in the beginning of March or a 
lyttel afore, is tyme for a wife to make her garden, and to gette 
as many good sedes and herbes as be good for the potte and 



Also 



86 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

to eate, and as ofte as nede shall requyre it must be weded, 
for els wedes wyl ouergrowe the herbes." These herbs were 
much the same as in the previous century, but a few are men- 
tioned in writings of this date which have not appeared on 
earlier lists, and some, such as asparagus, melons, taragon, 
horse-radish, and artichokes, were first grown in the royal 
gardens about this time. Tusser devotes several lines in his 
poem to beans and peas. In January — 

" Good gardiner mine, 
Make garden fine. 
Set garden pease 

and beans, if ye please." 
And again : 

" Dig garden, stroy^ mallow, now may ye at ease, 
And set (as a dainte) thy runciiiall pease." 

" Sowe pease (good trull^) 
the moone past full ; 
Stick bows a rowe 

where runciuals growe." 

" Set plentie of bows among runciuall pease 

to climber thereon, and to branch at their ease." 

These quotations show that runcival peas were a favourite 
dainty. They were a large kind of pea, and the name is 
supposed to be derived from Roncesvalles, in the Pyrenees. 
Tusser also gives directions for picking beans : 

" Not rent off, but cut off ripe beane with a knife. 
For hindering stalke of hir vegetive life ; 
So gather the lowest, and leauing the top 
Shall teach thee a trick, for to double thy crop." 

In the ordinary course of things, little would have to be 
bought for a garden, as seeds would be saved, and plants 
divided and exchanged among friends, year by year. 

" Good huswifes in sommer will saue their owne seedes 
against the next yeere, as occasion needes. 
One seede for another, to make an exchange 
With fellowlie neighbourhood seemeth not strange." 

^ Expression often used, probably for the sake of rhythm =weed, or 
destroy, wild mallow, a common weed. 
2 =good girl, or lass. 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 87 

Consequently, in old account-books entries for things bought 
to stock the garden are rare. But the making so many fine 
new gardens must have created a demand for plants with 
which to furnish them. The large quantities of things bought 
for the newly laid-out gardens could only have been supplied 
by regular nurserymen and market-gardeners. For instance, 
such amounts as five hundred rose-trees, six hundred cherry- 
trees^ at 6d. per hundred, could hardly have been grown in 
private gardens. 

The fruit and vegetable market of London in Edward IL's 
reign^ has already been glanced at, and with the great advances 
in gardening since that time it is most probable that the market 
had also increased and the market-gardeners multiplied. Then, 
as now, the great place for market-gardens was the immediate 
vicinity of London, but some were planted even in the heart 
of the town, as the following quotation shows : " About the 
latter part of the reign of Henry VIIL, the poor people of 
Portsoken Ward, East Smithfield, were hedged out, and in 
place of their homely cottages, such houses builded as do rather 
want room than rent, and the residue was made into a garden 
by a gardener named Cawsway, one that serveth the market 
with herbs and roots." ^ 

The largest supply of fruit-trees came from the orchard at 
Tenham, in Kent. The history of its establishment is related 
in a curious and rare pamphlet, entitled The Husbandman's 
Fruitful Orchard, 1609. The author is unknown, but the epistle 
to the reader is signed " thy well- wilier N.F.""^ " One Richard 
Harris, of London, borne in Ireland, Fruiterer to King Henry 
the eight, fetched out of Fraunce great store of graftes, espe- 
cially pippins, before which time there were no pippins in 
England. He fetched also out of the Lowe Countries, cherrie 
grafts and Peare graftes of diuers sorts : Then tooke a peese 
of ground belonging to the king in the Parrish of Tenham in 
Kent, being about the quantitie of seaven score acres : whereof 
he made an orchard, planting therein all those foraigne grafts. 
Which orchard is and hath been from time to time, the chiefe 

^ Hampton Court Account. ^ See p. 39. 

^ Stowe, Survey of London, ed. 1598, p. 139. 
* Imprinted for Roger Jackson, London. 



88 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

mother of all other orchards for those kinds of fruit in Kent 
and diuers other places. And afore that these said grafts were 
fetched out of Fraunce and the Lowe Countries although that 
there was some store of fruite in England, yet there wanted 
both rare fruite and lasting fine fruite. The Dutch and French, 
finding it to be so scarce especially in these counties neere 
London, commonly plyed Billingsgate and diuers other places, 
with such kinde of fruit, but now (thankes bee to God) 
diuers gentlemen and others taking delight in grafting 
. . . have planted many orchards fetching their grafts out 
of that orchard which Harris planted called the New 
Garden." 

When Drayton wrote his Polyolbion, in 1619-22, the 
orchard must still have been flourishing, as he alludes to it 
thus : 

" Rich Tenham undertakes thy closet to suffice with cherries." 

Song XVIII. 

This orchard is supposed to have produced cherries which sold 
for ;^i,ooo in the year 1540^ — an immense sum for those days — 
and it seems an exaggeration when compared with the ordinary 
prices of cherries found in the household books about this date 
— for instance, " Item 9th Julye, 1549, 2 lbs. cherrys at my 
Ladye's comandemente IVd.," and again, " 27th Julye, 1549, 
4 pond of cherrys IVd."^ It is difficult to arrive at the ordinary 
prices given for garden produce. They must, of course, have 
varied with the seasons and the quality of the fruit. The diffi- 
culty of conveying fruit to market would probably keep up the 
price. One gardener might have great abundance of a certain 
fruit, while at no great distance a high price was being paid 
for like wares, but owing to the difficulties of communication, 
he would be unable to take advantage of this market for his 
goods. But that they made as much profit as they could, 
and were not always fair in their dealing, the following law 
and severe penalties prove : " 2 & 3 Edward VI., c. 15. — Foras- 
much as of late divers sellers of victuals not contented with 
moderate and reasonable gain . . . have conspired and 

^ Johnson, History of English Gardening, 1829, p. 56. Philips, Com- 
panion to the Orchard, ed. 1821, p. 79. 

2 Le Strange, MSS. Household Books at Hunstanton, Norfolk. 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 89 

covenanted together, to sell their victuals at unreasonable prices 
— butchers, brewers, bakers . . . costermongers, or fruiterers, 
£10 fine or twenty days imprisonment and bread and water 
for his sustenance, second offence £20 and the pillory, third 
oifence £40 or pillory and ears cut off." 

The increase in the number of orchards seems to have 
rendered their legal protection necessary, as another very 
curious Act was passed : " 37th Henry VIII., c. 6., sect. 3. — 
. . . Any person maliciously, willingly or unlawfully, after the 
said first May (1545), cut or cause to be cut off the ear or ears 
of any of the King's subjects otherwise than by authority of 
the law, chance-medley, sudden affray or adventure : (6) or 
after the said day maliciously, willingly, or unlawfully bark any 
apple-trees, pear-trees, or other fruit-trees of any other person 
or persons : (7) that then every such offender and offenders 
shall not only lose and forfeit unto the party grieved treble 
damages for such offence or offences, the same to be recovered 
by action of trespass, to be taken at the common law, but 
also shall lose and forfeit to the King's Majesty and his 
heirs, for every such offence X £ sterling in the name of a 
fine." 

Saffron continued to be largely used and grown for the 
market, and sold at a high price. In the accounts of the 
Monastery of Durham, " Crocus," or saffron, is of frequent 
occurrence. In 1531 half a pound was bought in July ; the 
same quantity in August and in November, a quarter of a pound 
in September, and a pound and a half in October. These 
items give some idea of the consumption. In 1539-40 the 
saffron was bought from Thos. Freeman, of Doncaster, and 
of a merchant from Cambridge. To the latter, for six and 
a half pounds of " crocus," £7 8s. was paid. In 1538 it 
was bought at " Braydforth fayre." Although it was 
not cultivated at all in the North, and, as the above quota- 
tions show, had to be imported from the Eastern counties, 
saffron commanded almost as high a price in that part of the 
country. At Hunstanton, in Norfolk, on " March 26th, 1536, 
one ounce of saffron cost 8d. and old saffron i2d. the 
ounce." ^ 

^ Le Strange, MSS. Household Books. 



90 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

It was a profitable crop, and Tusser, who lived in the Eastern 
counties, warns the husbandman not to forget it : 

" Pare saffron plot, 
Forget it not ; 
His dwelling made trim, 

look shortly for him. 
When harvest is gone 

then saffron comes on ; 
A little of ground 

brings saffron a pound. '"^ 

The work in gardens of all sizes seems to have been superin- 
tended by one head-gardener, who had the charge of the buying 
and selling and planting of the garden-stuff ; but the actual 
manual cultivation was done by labourers hired by the day, 
and not by a permanent staff. The post of head-gardener in 
any of the royal gardens was quite an important position. 
The wages were from about £12 per annum, and all the money 
for the payment of labourers passed through the head-gardener's 
hands. ^ The labourers received 6d., 4d., or 3d. a day, or even 
2d. a day if they were given food.^ The weeding was usually 
done by women, and 3d. or 2d. a da}^ was the ordinary wage."* 

^ Five Hundred Pointes of Goode Husbandrie — August. 

^ 1532. — " Also paid by the hands of the forsaid Edmund Gryff(yn) 
(head-gardener), for digging, gathering, and sorting of the said trees, i2d. 
Also paid to the said Edmund Gryff(yn), for carriage of the forsaid apple 
trees, I5d." 

^ 1530. — " A gardener at 6d. a day." 

1530. — " To John Hutton, for making and levelling of beds in the 
king's new garden, and raking of the same, by the space (of) 12 days at 
4d. a day, 4s." {Hampton Court Accotints). 

May 8th, 1540. — " To Claaston, for mowyng of the garden at Hun- 
stanton, 2d." September, 1543. — " For dyggen in the garden, 4d." 

December loth, 1549. — " 2 fiellowes for helping in the garden for oon 
week, 2s. 6d." (Le Strange, Hotisehold Books). 

1530. — " Paid to four gardeners for four days — March i8th, 2s. 8d." 
{A Book of Receipts and Expenses of Cardinal's College, Oxford). 

* 1530. — " 5 labourers and 15 women weeders in the garden and the 
orchard " ; again, " 20 women weeders, 2 labourers, and 2 mowers " — a 
list of the names of the weeders follows, and the men received 4d. per 
day, the women 3d. {Hampton Cottrt Accounts). 

April 23rd (1530). — " Paid to two women rooting up unprofitable 
herbs (extirpantibus herbas inutiles) in the garden for three daj^s, i6d." 

June 6th. — " Paid to Margaret Hall, cleansing the garden, 3d." 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 91 

Garden-tools have but little changed since the earliest times. 
The spade and rake now in use are much the same as those of 
Tudor days. Tusser, in the following passage, enumerates the 
tools then in use :^ 

" Now set doo aske watering with pot or with dish ; 
new sowne doo not so, if ye doo as I wish, 
Through cunning with dible, rake, mattock and spade, 
by Une and by leuell, trim garden is made." 

The cost of these tools can be ascertained from various accounts. 
The prices ranged from 4d. to is.^ 

Probably many of the tools were home-made. Fitzherbert, 
in 1534, in his Book of Husbandry, devotes a paragraph to 
showing " howe forkes and rakes shulde be made." He says 
that they should be prepared in the winter, " when the hous- 
bande sytteth by the fyre, and hath nothynge to do than may 
he make theym redye, and tothe^ the rakes with dry wethy- 
wode, and bore the holes with his wymble,"* bothe aboue and 
vnder, and drive the tethe vpwarde faste and harde, and than 
wedge them aboue with drye woode of oke. . . . They be 
most comonly made of hasell and withee." Fitzherbert also 
gives a list of the tools used for grafting : " A graffynge-sawe 

June 23rd. — " Joan Fery, working for three days, lod." 

August 19th. — " Paid to Agnes Stringer, working for two days with a 
half, 7d." 

Several more entries of women gardeners follow these : " Paid for 
bread and drink and herrings and other things (for) the gardeners, all 
women, as appears by the book of expenses of the second term in the 
seventh week, 2s. ifd." (Cardinal' s College, Oxford). 

" 3 whemen for wedyng, 6d." (Le Strange, Household Books). 

^ Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. 

2 Hampton Court, March, 1533. Item for three iron rakes serving 
for the King's new garden at 6d. the piece — i8d. Item for a hachet 
serving for the said garden, 6d. Item for three new knives to shred 
the quicksets in the new garden at 3d. the piece, gd. Item for six 
pieces of round line to measure and set forth the new garden, i2d. Item 
for two cutting hooks, 2S. Item for two cutting knives, 4d. Item for 
two rakes, i6d. Item for tvvo chisels, 6d. Item for a graffing saw, 4d. 
The price paid for a spade at Hunstanton, in Norfolk, on July 7th, 1538, 
was 8d., and on December ist, in the same year, 5d., and " for a hatt- 
chett, a rake and a parying yearne ( =paring-iron) for the garden, lod. 
March nth, 1543 " (Le Strange, Household Books). 

3 —tooth. * =an auger. 



92 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

. . . very thynne, and thycke-tothed/' " a grafftng-knyfe, an 
inch brode with a thycke backe, to cleue the stock with all," 
" a mallet to dryue the knyfe and thy wedge in-to the tree," 
" a sharpe knyfe to pare the stockes heed, and an other sharpe 
knyfe to cutte the graffe cleane." " Two wedges of harde wood 
or elles of yren." 

While the husbandman was working in his garden, or making 
his tools, the housewife busied herself with the preparation of 
conserves of fruit, and distilling and making decoctions from 
almost every herb that grew. This business was of such im- 
portance that a room was in most houses set apart for the 
purpose. The " still-room " of modern days is a survival of 
this custom. One of Tusser's " five hundred pointes " is 
" good huswifelie Physicke," of which these stanzas are a good 
example : 

" Good aqua composita, vinegar tart, 
Rose water and treakle to comfort the hart. 
Cold herbs in hir garden for agues that burne 

that ouer strong heat to good temper may turne. 

Get water of Fumentorie, Liuer to coole 

and others the like, or els lie like a foole 
Conserue of the Barberie, Quinces and such 
^ with sirops that easeth the sickley so much." 

In 1527, a certain printer, " Laurens Andrewe," translated and 
issued a work entitled. The Vertuose Boke of Distyllacyon of 
the Waters of all Manner of Herhes, translated from the German 
of "Jerome of Brynswicke " (Brunswick). It is illustrated 
throughout with quaint woodcuts, and contains extraordinary 
recipes, which, if followed by the housewife, must have added 
horrors to illness, and perhaps have done her friends and relations 
more harm than good. Among the plants she is recommended 
to use are yellow lillies, floure de luce purpure, periwinkle, 
house-leek, red and white roses, Solomon's seal, woodbine, 
peony, marigold, besides herbs, such as dill, burnet, or dande- 
lion and fruits, including cherries, quinces, peach-leaves, apples, 
and nuts. 

The Household Books of the fifth Earl of Northumberland 
(1502) contain the following list of " herbes to stylle ": " Borage, 
columbine, buglos, sorrel, cowsloppes, scabious, wild tansey, 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 93 

wormwood, endyff, sauge, dandelion, and hart's tonge." Many 
herbs in every garden were grown solely for this purpose, and 
these sweet waters were used in cooking as well as for medicine. 
A neighbourly gift of distilled herbs was often exchanged, and it 
is not uncommon to find records of such presents as " sweet 
waters," " rose water," or " syrup of roses," being accepted 
by the wealthy from their poorer friends. Similar offerings of 
flowers or fruit were no less frequent. The Parson of Titteshall 
sent the Squire of Hunstanton a present of pears and apples, 
" his boye " receiving a penny for bringing them. On another 
occasion " wenches " from the same parish brought him red 
roses. ^ The Bishop of Norwich sent the Duke of Buckingham 
a dish of cherries, and one May Day " four may dens of Kanis- 
ham brought presents of hawthorne to my Lord's Grace, being 
in his orchard."^ One feels tempted to pause to entwine a 
pretty story round these four maidens of Kanisham. Without 
much strain on the imagination, and with the help of these 
simple records, it is easy to conjure up delightful visions, and 
to picture many a fascinating scene of homely country life in 
Tudor times. 

^ Le Strange, Household Books (1540). 

^ Duke of Buckingham's Household Accounts. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 

" Like a banquetting house built in a garden, 
On which the spring's chaste flowers take delight 
To cast their modest odours." 

MiDDLETON : Marriage. 

THE reign of Elizabeth was a golden era in English history, 
and abounded in men of genius. Among the many 
branches of art, science, and industry to which they turned 
their attention, none profited more from the power of their 
great minds than did the Art of Gardening. Bacon's Essay on 
Gardens is familiar to everyone. Lord Burghley was the patron 
of Gerard, one of the greatest of English herbalists, and to 
Sir Walter Raleigh is due the introduction of that most 
prolific and profitable vegetable — the potato. 

About this time the persecution of the Protestants on the 
Continent drove many of them to find a safe refuge in Eng- 
land. They brought with them some of the foreign ideas 
about gardening, and thus helped to improve the condition 
of Horticulture. 

The Elizabethan garden was the outcome of the older 
fashions in English gardens combined with the new ideas 
imported from France, Italy, and Holland. The result was a 
purely national style, better suited to this country than a 
slavish imitation of the terraced gardens of Italy or of those 
of Holland, with their canals and fish-ponds. There was no 
breaking-away from old forms and customs, no sudden change. 
The primitive medieval garden grew into the pleasure-garden 
of the early Tudors, which by a process of slow and gradual 
development eventually became the more elaborate garden of 

94 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 95 

the Elizabethan era. What is meant now by a " formal " or 
" old-fashioned " garden is one of this type ; but, as genuine 
and unaltered Elizabethan gardens are rare, it is generally the 
further development of the same style a hundred years later, 
which is known as a " formal old English garden," 

The garden of this period was laid out strictly in connection 
with the house. The architect who designed the house designed 
the garden also. There are some drawings extant by John 
Thorpe, one of the most celebrated architects of the time, of 
both houses and the gardens attached to them. The garden 
was held to be no mere adjunct to a house, or a confusion of 
greenswards, paths, and flower-beds, but the designing of a 
garden was supposed to require even more skill than the 
planning of a house ; " men come to build stately sooner than 
to garden finely ; — as if gardening were the greater perfection."^ 
Sir Hugh Piatt's opinion^ seems to have been the exception 
that proves the rule, as most other writers were particular in 
describing the correct form for a garden, but he writes : " I 
shall not trouble the reader with any curious rules for shaping 
and fashioning of a garden or orchard — how long, broad, or 
high, the Beds, Hedges, or Borders should be contrived, . , . 
Every Drawer or Embroiderer — nay (almost) each Dancing 
Master, may pretend to such niceties ; in regard the}^ call for 
very small invention, and lesse learning." 

In front of the house there was usually a terrace, from 
which the plan of the garden could be surveyed. Flights of 
steps and broad straight walks, called " forthrights,"^ con- 
nected the parts of the garden, as well as the garden with the 
house. Smaller walks ran parallel with the terrace, and the 
spaces between were filled with grass plots, mazes, or knotted 
beds. The " forthrights " corresponded to the plan of the 
building, while the patterns in the beds and mazes harmonized 
with the details of the architecture. The peculiar geometric 
tracery which surmounted so many Elizabethan houses found 

^ Bacon, Essay on Gardens. 

^ Floraes Paradise, or Garden of Eden, 1st ed., 1608. 
^ "... Here's a maze trod indeed, 
Through forthrights and meanders ..." 

Tempest, Act III., Scene 8. 



96 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

its counterpart in the designs of the flower-beds. " The 
form that men hke in general is a square,"^ and this shape 
was chosen in preference to "an orbicular, a triangle, or an 
oblong, because it doth best agree with a man's dwelling."^ 
This square garden was usually enclosed by a high brick or 
stone wall ; thus, to have " a garden circummured with brick "^ 
was common in the time of Shakespeare. The picture which 
does duty both in Thomas Hill's Gardener's Labyrinth and in 
his Art of Gardening shows a square garden with a paling round 
it. Another illustration, which appears three times in the 
Gardener's Labyrinth, gives a brick wall ; while, in a third, 
the garden is enclosed by a hedge. The custom of covering 
the walls with rosemary was " exceedingly common in Eng- 
land."'* At Hampton Court rosemary was " so planted and 
nailed to the walls as to cover them entirely." Gerard^ and 
Parkinson both refer to the custom of planting against brick 
walls. In the North of England, according to Lawson, the 
garden walls were made of " drie earthe," and it was usual to 
plant " thereon wallflowers and divers sweet-smelling plants." 
Bacon has a more magnificent plan : " The garden is best to 
be square, encompassed on all four sides with a stately arched 
hedge. The arches to be upon pillars of carpenter's work, of 
some ten foot high, and six foot broad, and the spaces between 
of the same dimension with the breadth of the arch." This 
" fair hedge " of Bacon's ideal garden was to be raised upon 
a bank, set with flowers, and little turrets above the arches, 
with a space to receive " a cage of birds "; " and over every 
space between the arches some other little figure, with broad 
plates of round coloured glass, gilt, for the sun to play upon." 
It is not likely that such fantastical ornaments to a hedge were 
usual, though it reminds one of the arched arcades already 
referred to, and does not seem to be at all a new idea of Bacon's. 
Thomas HilP discusses the various modes of fencing round 
a garden. A paling of " drie thorne " and willow he calls a 

^ Lawson, New Orchard, 1618. ^ Parkinson. 

^ Measure for Measure, Act IV., Scene i. 

* Hentzner's Travels, 1598. 

^ Gerard is spelt Gerarde on the engraved title of his herbal, but he 
signs the preface without the " e . " 

* Gardener's Labyrinth, 1608. 



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THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 97 

" dead or rough inclosure," He refers to the Romans for 
examples of the alternative of digging a ditch to surround the 
garden, but " the general way " is a " natural inclosure," a 
hedge of " white thorne artely laide : in a few years with 
dihgence it waxeth so thicke and strong that hardly any person 
can enter into the ground, sauing by the garden-door ; yet in 
sundrie garden groundes the hedges [are] framed with the 
privet-tree, although far weaker in resistance, which at this 
day are made the stronger through yearly cutting, both aboue 
and by the sides." He gives a quaint method for planting a 
hedge. The gardener is to collect the berries of briar, brambles, 
white-thorne, gooseberries, and barberries, steep the seeds in a 
mixture of meal, and set them to keep until the spring, in an 
old rope, " a long worn roape . . . being in a manner starke 
rotten." " Then, in the spring, to plant the rope in two 
furrows, a foot and a half deep, and three feet apart. . . . 
The seedes thus covered with diligence shall appeare within a 
month, either more or less," " which in a few years will grow 
to a most strong defence of the garden or field." These old 
gardeners had great faith in all their operations, and but rarely 
does any allusion to possible failure find a place in their works. 
Yews were much employed for hedges, but more for walks 
and shelter within the gardens, than to form the outer enclosure. 
In the larger gardens there were two or three gates in the walls, 
well designed, with handsome stone piers surmounted with balls 
or the owner's crest, and wrought-iron gates of elaborate pat- 
tern ; or else there was one fine gate at the principal entrance, 
the rest being smaller and less pretentious, merely " a planched 
gate,"-^ or " Httle door." The main principle of a garden was 
still that it should be a " garth," a yard, or enclosure ; the idea 
of such a thing as a practically unenclosed garden had not, 
as yet, entered men's minds. But because the garden was 
surrounded with a high wall, and those inside wished to look 
beyond, a terrace was contrived. As in the Middle Ages an 
eminence was made within the walls as a point from which to 
look over them, so at the period now under consideration the 
restricted view from the mount did not satisfy, and to get a 
more extended range over the park beyond and the garden 
^ Measure for Measure, Act. IV., Scene i. 

7 



98 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

within, a terrace was raised along one side of the square of the 
wall. " I have seen a garden," says Sir Henry Wotton, " into 
which the first access was a high walk like a terrace, from 
whence might be taken a general view of the whole plot below." 
De Caux, the designer of the Earl of Pembroke's garden at 
Wilton, made such a terrace there " for the more advantage of 
beholding those platts."^ Another is described at Kenilworth 
i^ 1575 • Hard all along by the castle wall is reared a pleasant 
terrace, ten feet high and twelve feet broad, even under foot, 
and fresh of fine grass. "^ The terraces, as a rule, were wide 
and of handsome proportions, with stone steps either at the 
ends or in the centre, and were raised above the garden either 
by a sloping grass bank or brick or stone wall. At Kirby, in 
Northamptonshire, a magnificent Ehzabethan house, now 
rapidly falHng into decay, all that remains of a once beautiful 
garden, " enrich'd with a great variety of plants,"^ is a terrace 
running the whole length of the western wall of the garden. 
It is now planted with potatoes, and the garden it overlooked 
is merely a meadow. The lines in Spenser's Ruins of Time 
might have been written on this garden had he but seen it in 
its present state : 

1 " Then did I see a pleasant paradize 

Full of sweete flowers and daintiest delights, 
Such as on earth man could not more devize ; 

With pleasure's choyce to feed his cheerful sprights. 
Since that I sawe this gardine wasted quite. 
That where it was scarce seemed anie sight ; 
■ That I, which once that beautie did beholde, 

Could not from teares my melting eyes with-holde." 

At Drayton, another Elizabethan house in the same county 
as Kirby, there is a wide terrace against the outer wall of the 
garden with a summer-house at each end, as well as a terrace 
in front of the house, and other examples exist. 

The " forthrights," or walks which formed the main lines of 
the garden design, were " spacious and fair." Bacon describes 
the width of the path by which the mount is to be ascended as 

^ Le Jardin de Wilton, De Caux, 1615. 

^ Robert Laneham, Letter describing the Pageants at Kenilworth 
Castle, 1575. Extract in Praise of Gardens, Sieveking, 1885. 
^ Morton, Natural History of Northamptonshire, 171 2, 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 99 

wide " enough for four to walk abreast," and the main walks 
were wider still, broad and long, and covered with " gravel, 
sand, or turf."^ There were two kinds of walks — those in the 
open part of the garden, with beds geometrically arranged on 
either side, and sheltered walks laid out between high clipped 
hedges, or between the main enclosure wall and a hedge ; there 
were also the " covert walks," or " shade alleys," in which the 
trees met in an arch over the path. Some of the walks were 
turfed, and some were planted with sweet-smelling herbs. 
" Those which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by 
as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three — that 
is, burnet, wild thyme, and water-mints ; therefore you are to 
set whole alleys of them to have the pleasure when you walk 
or tread. "^ It appears from a passage in Shakespeare, 
I Henry IV., Act II., Scene 4, that camomile was used in the 
same way. Falstaff says : " For though camomile, the more 
it is trodden on the faster it grows ; yet youth, the more it is 
wasted, the sooner it wears." 

In contrast to this, the " closer alleys must be ever finely 
gravelled, and no grass, because of going wet."^ Thomas Hill'* 
writes : " The walkes of the garden ground, the alhes even 
trodden out, and leuelled by a line, as either three or four foote 
abroad, may cleanely be sifted ouer with riuer or sea sand, to 
the end that showers of raine falling, may not offend the walkers 
(at that instant) in them, by the earth cleaning or clagging to 
their feete." Parkinson also has something to say about walks : 
' ' The fairer and larger your allies and walks be, the more grace 
your garden shall have, the lesse harm the herbs and flowers 
shall receive by passing by them that grow next unto the allies 
sides, and the better shall your weeders cleanse both the bed 
and the allies," 

The hedges on either side the walks were made of various 
plants — box, yew, cypress, privet, thorne, fruit trees, roses, 
briars, juniper, rosemary, hornbeam, cornel, " misereon," and 
pyracantha, " Every man taketh what liketh him best, as 
either privet alone or sweet Bryar, and whitethorn interlaced 
together, and Roses of one, two, or more sorts placed here and 

^ Lawson, A New Orchard, 1597. ~ Bacon, Essay. 

^ Bacon, Essay. * Gardener' s Labyrinth. 

7—2 



100 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

there amongst them, . . . Some plant cornel trees and plash 
them or keep them low to form them into a hedge ; and some 
again take a low prickly shrub that abideth always green, called 
in Latin Pyracantha."^ Of the cypress, Parkinson writes : 
** For the goodly proportion this tree beareth,. as also for his 
ever grene head, it is and hath beene of great account with 
all princes, both beyond and on this side of the sea, to plant 
them in rowes on both sides of some spatious walke, which, by 
reason of their highe growing, and little spreading, must be 
planted the thicker together, and so they give a pleasant and 
sweet shadow." Gerard, writing of the same plant, says : " It 
groweth likewise in diuers places in Englande, where it hath 
beene planted, as at Sion, a place neere London, sometime a 
house of nunnes ; it groweth also at Greenwich and at other 
places ; and likewise at Hampstead in the garden of Master 
Waide, one of the Clarkes of hir Maiesties Priuy Counsell." 

Many of the walks and alleys were " shadowed over with 
vaulting or arch-hearbes."" Bacon thus explains the object of 
making " these pleached alleys," or " covert " walks. " But 
because the alley will be long, and in the great heat of the year 
or day you ought not to buy the shade in the garden by going 
in the sun through the greene (you ought) to plant a covert 
alley upon carpenter's work, about twelve foot in height, by 
which you may go in shade into the garden." The " thick- 
pleached alley," in which Antonio saw Don Pedro and Claudio 
walking, in Much Ado About Nothing, was one of this sort. The 
word " pleach," or " plash," or " impleach," is from the French 
plesser, from plexum, to plait, infold, or interweave. It is 
used by Shakespeare, not only for cut and intwined trees, 
as in this case, but also for braided hair (" their hair with 
twisted metal amorously impleach'd," in A Lover's Complaint) 
and for arms enfolded (" with pleacht armes, bendinge down," 
in Antony and Cleopatra). 

The plants used to form these shady walks were willows, 
limes, wych-elms, hornbeam, cornel, privet, or whitethorn, also 
" the great maple or sycamore tree cherished in our land only 
in orchards, or elsewhere, for shade and walks." ... " It is 
altogether planted for shady walks, and hath no other use with 
^ Thomas Hill, Gardener's Labyrinth. ^ Ibid. 




PLEACHED ALLEY AT DRAYTON. 



To face page loo. 



o 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN loi 

us that I know."^ The alley remaining at Hampton Court 
is of wych-elm. At Theobalds these trees were chiefly used in 
those alleys where " one might walk twoe myle in the walkes 
before he came to their ends." At Drayton, in Northampton- 
shire, there are two fine specimens of pleached alleys, and the 
gnarled stems of the wych-elms forming them bear testimony 
to their age. The " covert walks " were sometimes made with a 
trellis of wood-work, planted with creepers, such as were in 
vogue in earlier times, " made like galleries," " covered with y'' 
vine spreading all over, or some other trees which more pleased 
them."^ 

Mounts still formed an important accessory to the garden. 
Bacon, who, it must be remembered, was " speaking of those 
(gardens) which are indeed princelike," thus describes the 
mount : " I wish," he says, " in the middle, a fair mount, with 
three ascents, and alleys enough for four to walk abreast ; 
which I would have to be perfect circles, without any bulwarks 
or embossments : and the whole mount to be 30 feet high, 
surmounted by a fine banquetting-house with some chimneys 
neatly cast." Such banqueting-houses were often made merely 
for some special occasion, and decorated with ivy and ever- 
greens, to give them the appearance of permanency. This was 
an age that delighted in pageants, and what more fitting back- 
ground for their display than the beautiful gardens that this 
same love of display was creating and developing. When any 
pageant or " re veils " took place, additions were made to the 
arbours or banqueting-houses in the garden, to accommodate 
the guests. In June, 1554, " certaine banqueting-houses of 
Bowes { — boughs) and other devices of pleasure," were to be 
made at Oatlands, and Sir Thomas Cawarden, as " Master of 
the Tents and Toyles," received a royal command to superin- 
tend their erection as he had " good experience heretofore in lyk 
things."^ The following extracts show some of his past experi- 
ences, both what he had to do, and the cost of carrying it out.* 
" 4th year of Edward VI. — Banketing-houses 2, the one in 
Hyede Parke conte3menge in length 57 feet and in bredth 
21 feet of assize with a halpace staler (step for dais) conteining 

^ Parkinson, Paradisus. ^ Hill, Gardener's Labyrinth. 

' MSS. belonging to M. More-Molyneux, Loseley, Surrey. * Ibid. 



102 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

the bredth the one way 60 foote and the other way 30 foote and 
over the same a type or turret garnished. One other house in 
Marybone Parke conteyninge in length 40 foote the same ad- 
joined framed, made and wrought of tymber, brick, and lyme, 
with their raunges and other necessary utensyles therto insi- 
dent, and to the hke accustomed, And 6 standinges whereof 
were in either of the said parkes, 3 all of tymber garnished with 
boughes and flowers every (one) of them conteynenge in length 
10 foote and in bredth 8 foote * * * Employed on the above 
works for 22 days, at all hours a space to eat and drynke ex- 
cepted." Carpenters and bricklayers id, the hour, labourers 
|d. the hour — plasterers iid. a day, painters yd. and 6d. a day. 
" Charges for cutting boughs in the wood at Hyde Park for 
trimming the banquetting-house, gathering rushes, flags, and 
ivy." ... " Taylors for sewing the roof, &c. : basket makers 
working upon windows. — Total cost, £i(i(^ . 7 . 8." 

In Stow's Annals another of these banqueting-houses is 
described. It was made in 1581, at Whitehall, " for certaine 
Ambassadors out of France." It was round, being 332 feet in 
circumference, and was built on the south-west of the palace 
near the river. Over the canvas roof, painted like clouds, 
" this house was wrought most cunningly with ivy and holly, 
with pendants made of wicker rods garnished with bay, rue, 
and all manner of strange flowers garnished with spangles of 
gold . . . beautiful with teasons { = festoons) made of ivy and 
holy, with all manner of strange fruits, as pomegranates, 
oranges, pompions, cucumbers, grapes, with such like spangled 
with gold, and most richly hanged." 

Of course, such banqueting-houses were only made on State 
occasions, and could only be afforded by the wealthy. The 
mount in an ordinary garden was surmounted by an arbour of 
the plainest description. It may have been a great convenience 
as a point from which a good view could be secured, especially 
in a garden not sufficiently grand or large to have a raised 
terrace ; but in these more modest gardens, unless planted with 
flowering plants and creepers, a mount cannot have been a 
beautiful object. In a book on Boscobel pubhshed in 1660 there 
is a picture of such a mount, and it exists unaltered to the 
present day. Nothing could be plainer than tliis ; and it is 




BOSCOBEL IN 1660. 




THE MOUNT AT BOSCOBEL AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

To face page 102. 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 103 

probably a good sample of the more simple mounts of this date, 
although it cannot be so early as EHzabethan times. It was 
most hkely made when the house was built, about 1620, and it 
was in its present state when Charles II. hid in the oak-tree 
hard by. The Battle of Worcester was fought on Wednesday, 
September 3rd, 1651. The Saturday following Charles spent 
in hiding in the " Royal Oak," at Boscobel, and the next day 
" His Majesty, finding himself now in a hopefull security, spent 
some part of this Lord's-day in a pretty arbor in Boscobel 
garden, which grew upon a mount, and wherein there was a 
stone table and seats about it. In this place he pass'd away 
some time in reading, and commended the place for its 
retiredness."^ Bacon planted and improved the garden of 
Gray's Inn, and the summer-house which he made there in 
memory of his friend Jeremiah Bettenham in 1609 must 
have been very similar. It is thus described in 1761 soon after 
it had been destroyed and the ground levelled : " Till lately 
there was a summer-house erected by the great Sir Francis 
Bacon upon a small mount : it was open on all sides, and the 
roof supported by slender pillars,"^ This was placed so as to 
command a " prospect over the neighbouring fields as far as 
the hills of Highgate." 

The mount was not always a circular lump standing out in 
the garden ; it appears that it was still sometimes banked up 
against the outside wall. Bacon describes this kind also : " At 
the end of both the side grounds," he writes, " I would have 
a mount of some pretty height, leaving the wall of the enclosure 
breast-high, to look abroad into the fields." The erections 
placed on the top of mounts did not do away with the use of 
other arbours in less exposed places in the garden. Some 
" arbour o'ergrown with woodbines,"^ or " pleached bower 
where honey-suckles ripen'd by the sun, forbid the sun to 
enter,""* were sure to be found in a secluded spot. " You 

^ Boscobel, or the History of His Sacred Majesties most miraculous 
Preservation after the Battle of Worcester, 3 Sept., 165 1, by Thomas 
Blount, 1660; reprint, 1822. The illustration is taken from this 
work. 

^ Quoted in Gray's Inn, Douthwaite, 1886. 

^ Fletcher, Faithful Shepherdess. 

* Much Ado About Nothing, Act III., Scene i. 



104 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

may," writes Thomas Hill/ " make the herbers either 
straight or running up, or else vaulted or close over the head, 
like to the vine herbers now adaies made. And if they be made 
with juniper-wood, you neede to repaire nothing thereof for 
ten years after ; but if they be made with willow poles, then must 
you new repaire them euery 3 yeare after. And he which will 
set Roses to run about his herber, or beds round about his, must 
set them in Februarie, . . . And in the like manner you may 
doe, if you will sowe that sweet tree or flower named Jacemine, 
Rosemary, or the Pomegranate seedes, unless you had rather 
decke your herbers comelier with vines." Parkinson enume- 
rates some of the other plants used for arbours. " The Jaci- 
mine, white and yellow, the double Honeysocke, the Ladies' 
Bower, both white and red and purple, single and double, are 
the fittest of outlandish plants to be set by arbours and ban- 
quetting-houses that are open both before and above, to help 
to cover them, and to give both sight, smell, and dehght." The 
" Ladies' Bower " is Clematis Vitalba, or " traveller's joy," and 
some five foreign species of Clematis.^ Kidney beans were also 
employed. They "do easily and soone spring up, and growe into 
a very great length ; being sowen neere vnto long poles fastened 
hard by them or hard by arbors and banquetting places."^ 

Parkinson describes a curious arbour made in a lime-tree. 
That tree, he says, " is planted to make goodly arbours, and 
summer banqueting-houses, either below upon the ground, the 
boughs serving very handsomely to plash round about it, or up 
higher for a second above it, and a third also." He goes on to 
explain the " goodliest spectacle that ever " his eyes beheld 
was at Cobham, in Kent, where an arbour was made in this way ; 
boards to tread on were laid on the iirst series of bouglis 8 feet 
from the ground, the stem again kept bare of branches another 
8 or 9 feet, and a second lot of branches plashed to form the 
roof of the middle, and the floor of yet a third arbour, and 
stairs arranged to mount up to it ; the arbour, he says, would 
hold " half a hundred men at the least.""* The following lines 
in Spenser's Faerie Queene convey to the mind a more vivid 
impression of an Elizabethan arbour than the sight of the 

^ Art of Gardening. ^ Paradisus, p. 392. 

^ Gerard's Herbal, p. 1141. * Paradisus, p. 610. 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 105 

tumble-down or overgrown remains of one in the corner of 
some, perchance, neglected garden could possibly do : 

' ' And over him Art, striving to compare 

With Nature, did an arbour green dispread, 

Fram'd of wanton ivy, flow'ring fair, 

Through which the fragrant eglantine did spread 

His prickHng arms, entrail'd witli roses red 

Which dainty odours round about them threw : 

And all within with flow'rs was garnished. 

That, when mild Zephyrus amongst them blew, 
Did breathe out bounteous smells and painted colour shew." 

Book II., Canto V., 29. 

The maze was another feature which now became prominent 
in many gardens. " There be some that set their mazes with 
Lavender, cotton spike, majoram and such hke, or Isope and 
Time, or quickset, privet, plashed fruit trees." ^ Lawson gives 
directions for making mazes, and says : " When they are well 
formed of a man's height, your friend may perhaps wander in 
gathering berries till he cannot recover himself without your 
help." Thomas Hill gives two designs for mazes, though he 
says they are not " for any necessary commodotie in a garden, 
but rather " . . . " that who so listeth having such room 
in their garden may place the one of them ... in that void 
place . . . that may best be spared for the only purpose to sport 
in them at times." Many people, on the mention of the word 
"maze," will think at once of the well-known example at 
Hampton Court, which affords so much amusement to thou- 
sands of Londoners and holiday-makers ; but that was not laid 
out till a very much later date, probably in the year 1700. 

Trees cut in fantastical shapes were frequently to be found 
between the hedges, dotted about and arranged so as to form 
vistas and walks. Bacon advises in " ordering of the ground 
within the great hedge "... that " it be not too busy or full 
of work," or, in more modern language, not too elaborate, and 
he adds, " I, for my part, do not like images cut out in jumper 
or other garden stuff — they be for children. Little low hedges 
round like welts, with some pretty pyramids, I like well, and 
in some places, fair columns." 

The idea that cut trees were generally yews is very prevalent, 

* Thomas Hill. 



io6 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

and the remains of topiary work in old gardens still in exist- 
ence confirm this impression. All the cut trees in the garden 
at Heshngton, near York, are yews. This garden was laid out 
soon after the house was built, about 1560. The quaintly- 
rounded hedge at Rockingham, and the hedges and trees at 
Erbistock, are two examples of the cut yews of this date. But 
in the books of the period other shrubs are spoken of more 
favourably than yews. It seems, therefore, that it is only 
because the yew is a slow grower, a sturdy tree, and an ever- 
green, that more yews than other shrubs have survived. Par- 
kinson says of the " use of the yew :" " It is found planted 
both in the corners of orchards and against the windows of 
houses, to be both a shadow and an ornament, it being always 
green." But of the privet he writes : " Because the use of this 
plant is so much, and so frequent throughout all this land, 
although for no other purpose but to make hedges or arbours 
in gardens, &c., whereunto it is so apt, that no other can be 
like unto it, to be cut, lead, and drawn into what forme one will, 
either of beasts, birds, or men armed or otherwise : I could not 
forget it, although it ... be an hedge bush." " Your Gardiner," 
writes Lawson in 1618, " can frame your lesser wood to the 
shape of men armed in the field, ready to give battell : or swift- 
running Grey Hounds to chase the Deere, or hunt the Hare. 
This kind of hunting shall not waste your corne, nor much your 
coyne." Rosemary also was " sette by women for their 
pleasure, to grow in sundry proportions, as in the fashion of a 
cart, a peacock, or such by things as they fancy. "^ 

Flowers were planted in borders along the walks and hedges, 
" thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees "^ {i.e., rob the 
trees of nourishment) , but the principal receptacles for flowers 
were " open beds," called " open knots," in contradistinction to 
the complicated knots. The most practical gardeners did not 
look with favour on the " curiously knotted garden,"^ although 
all books of this period give design for knots. Parkinson has a 
page of designs merely to " satisfy the desires " of his readers ; 
he himself considered " open knots " more suitable for the dis- 

^ Barnaby Googe's Husbandry, 1578. Translation of Conrad of 
HeresbacJi. 

^ Bacon. ^ Love's Labour's Lost, Act I., Scene i. 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 107 

play of flowers. There was not any room left for planting 
other things between the lines of thyme, thrift, hyssop, or what- 
ever the intricate pattern was carried out in. Sometimes the 
design was simply drawn out in coloured earths, a practice of 
which Bacon disapproved : " As for the making of knots or 
figures with divers-coloured earths . . . they be but toys ; you 
may see as good sights many times in tarts." The more simple 
knots were usually bordered with box, a practice which seems 
to have been introduced by French gardeners. Parkinson calls 
it " French or Dutch Box," and recommends it " chiefly and 
above all other herbs," as it was not so liable to overgrow the 
beds and distort the pattern, as " Thrift, Germander, Mar- 
jerome, Savorie," etc., and did not suffer so much from " the 
frosts and snows in winter," or " the drought in summer." 
Lavender cotton {Santolina chamcBcyparissus) , a new importa- 
tion, was also used, and " the rarity and novelty of this herb 
being for the most part but in the gardens of great persons, doth 
cause it to be of greater regard."^ 

If herbs or box were not used for bordering, " dead material " 
was the alternative, such as lead, either plain or " cut out 
like unto the battlements of a church," or oak boards, or tiles, 
or the shank-bones of sheep, " stuck in the ground, the small 
end downwards, which will become white, and prettily grace 
out the ground." Another plan was to use " round whitish or 
blewish pebble stones " — this method Parkinson puts last in 
his list, " for it is the latest invention . . . and maketh a pretty 
handsome shew." It seems strange that such a simple thing 
as stones for edging should not have been thought of before. 
Within these edgings, the " open knots " were filled with 
flowers, " all planted in some proportion as neare one unto 
another as is fit for them," which " will give such grace to the 
garden that the place will seem like a piece of tapestry of many 
glorious colours." Parkinson divides the flowers to be planted 
in gardens roughly into two sections, " English Flowers " and 
" Outlandish Flowers." Among English flowers he names all 
those that have already been noticed as being grown in earlier 
times, such as primroses, daisies, marigolds, gillyflowers, violets, 
roses, and columbines, and among outlandish flowers, or 

* Parkinson. 



io8 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

" flowers that being strangers unto us, and giving the beauty 
and bravery of their colours so early, before many of our own- 
bred flowers, the more to entice us to their delight . . . are 
almost in all places, with all persons, especially with the better 
sort of the gentry of the Land," " namely Daffodils, Fritil- 
larias. Jacinths, Saffron-flowers, Lillies, Flowerdeluces, Tulipas, 
Anemones, French cowslips or Bears' Ears, and a number of 
suchhke flowers, very beautiful, delightful, and pleasant." 

The number of " outlandish " flowers grown in good gardens 
was rapidly increasing. All through this period flowers were 
coming in, both from the Old and the New World. The 
following are a few among the best known of these importa- 
tions : " The Crown Imperial," both orange and yellow, and 
varieties of the small Fritillary, then called the " Turkic, or 
Guiniehen flower, or chequered daffodil." The hardy cycla- 
men {europceum) ; the Lobelia cardinalis, the Passion flower 
{Passiflora incarnata), or " Virgin climer." The Christmas 
rose {Helleborus niger, also Niger anguitifolius and vernalis) ; the 
common white lilac, or " pipe-tree," and syringa {Philadelphus 
coronarius) ; also the common cotoneaster and laburnum ; 
several species of martagon lilies ; the common yellow jasmine ; 
the sweet-scented marvel of Peru and evening primrose, and 
the hardy spiderworts ; the African marigold, and sunflowers 
and larkspurs, both annual and perennial ; the snowflakes, 
which were classed with snowdrops as " bulbous violets "! 
and Ranunculus, " the crowfoot of Illyria " {R. illyrius) and 
asiaticus, also Bachelor's buttons {R. piantanifolius flore-pleno 
and aconitifolius) , from the " Alpish Mountains "; sweet Sultan, 
{Centaurea moschata), Dittany or Fraxinella ; Balsam im- 
patiens ; some species of campanula, and the bright Convol- 
vulus minor (C hicolor). Tobacco was one of the acquisitions 
from America. The first description of the plant in EngHsh 
is found in John Frampton's translation of a Spanish work by 
Nicholas Monardus (after whom the genus Monarda has been 
named). He says it was grown " more to adornate gardens 
with the fairnesse thereof, and to give a pleasant sight " than 
for its medicinal properties, which he proceeds to enumerate. 
It was said to cure wounds, headache, toothache, chilblains, 
swellings, " griefes of the joyntes," and various internal evils, 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 109 

by applications of decoctions of its leaves. The only reference 
to the smoking of the dry leaves by Europeans was that 
those " that doo fetch their breath short are recommended to 
take the smoke " in at the mouth. ^ 

Several new plants were introduced by the exertions of 
some of the leading patrons of gardening. Lord Burghley and 
Lord Carew were the first to try growing oranges in England. 
Lord Salisbury employed Tradescant to procure new varieties 
of fruit trees and other plants from abroad. Lord Zouche, 
also, deserves a foremost place among the encouragers of horti- 
culture. He was the patron of Lobel, and had a fine Physic 
Garden at Hackney, of which Lobel had the charge. Lord 
Zouche himself also brought back plants from abroad. Gerard 
mentions two in particular. " The small Candy mustard," 
which grows in " Austria, Candy, Spain, and Italy," was brought 
by him on his return " from those parts." Also the " Thorne 
apple," the seeds of which he presented to Gerard. 

New plants and new ideas about gardening were also coming 
in from France and the Low Countries, with the influx of 
Protestant refugees. The Huguenots who came to this 
country were representatives of almost every trade and craft, 
and especially that of gardening, which greatly improved under 
the influence of these new-comers, and members of that craft 
were among those who took out Letters of Denization in 1544. 
Many of these foreign gardeners settled about Sandwich, 
Colchester, and Norwich, and gave a stimulus to gardening 
in those districts. Foreign gardeners were employed by 
several landowners in the neighbourhood, to alter and lay out 
their gardens. In 1575 a Dutch gardener was paid 3s. 4d. 
for " his travayle from Norwich to Hengrave to vie we ye 
orchards, gradyns, and walks," and 40s. was also " paid to 
the Dutchman for clypping the knotts, altering the alleys, 
setting the grounde, finding herbs and bordering the same."^ 
It was these foreigners, also, who first set on foot the " Florist 
Feasts " for which Norwich was famed. 

^ Joyfull Newes out of the New-found Worlde, translated from the 
Spanish by John Frampton, 1580. 

^ Huguenot Society, Walloons and their Church at Norwich, W. T. C. 
Moens, 1887. 



no A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

In the gardens typical of this age, between the flower-beds, 
and at intervals along the terrace or beside the walks, lead or 
stone vases were sometimes placed, either filled with flowers, 
or merely for ornament. Beautiful examples of lead vases 
still exist in some old gardens. At Drayton, in Northampton- 
shire, there are a number of these vases of different sizes 
throughout the garden. Two may be seen in the illustration 
of the pleached alley. Other ornaments were not so frequent 
as in later times ; " Great Princes sometimes add statues and 
such things for state and magnificence, but nothing to the 
true pleasures of a garden. "^ 

Parkinson says a garden should have " a fountain in the 
midst thereof to convey water to every part of the garden, 
either in pipes under the ground, or brought by hand and 
emptied into large cisterns or great Turkey jars, placed in 
convenient places." Bacon writes : " For fountains, they are 
a great beauty and refreshment ; but pools mar all, and make 
the garden unwholesome and full of flies and frogs. Foun- 
tains I intend to be of two natures ; the one that sprinkleth 
or spouteth water, the other a fair receipt of water of some 
30 or 40 foot, but without fish, slime, or mud. For the first, 
the ornaments of images gilt, or of marble, which are in use, 
do well. . . . Also some steps up to it, and some fine pave- 
ment about, doth well. As for the other kind of fountain, 
which we may call a bathing-pool, it may admit much curiosity 
and beauty, wherewith we will not trouble ourselves ; as, that 
the bottom be finely paved, and with images ; the sides like- 
wise, and withal embellished with coloured glass and such things 
of lustre, encompassed also with fine rails of low statues." 
In the ordinary garden the " fair receipt of water " was not so 
much embellished, being merely a straight pond with stone 
steps at each corner, the rest of the bank of smooth turf. 
November 25th, 1595, Sir Thomas Cecil wrote from Wimbledon 
to Sir William More, of Loseley, saying that " hearing he has 
made divers great pools, he begs him to procure one skilful 
therein, as certain banks he has made that year about a great 
pool, have given way through unskilfulness of the workmen."^ 
The pools at Loseley must have been some time in existence^ 
^ Bacon. ^ MS. letter at Loseley, Surrey. 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN iii 

as on December 2ist, 1581, Henry Sledd, Queen Elizabeth's 
fishmonger, wrote to Sir WilHam More offering to buy some 
carp out of his pond. He offers from I2d. to i8d. a piece, 
according to their size, and adds, " Yf I see they be more 
worthe ... I will mend the pryse."^ 

Of the first kind of fountain there were many examples in 
the finest gardens at the time when Bacon wrote. Frederick, 
Duke of Wurtemberg, describes the one he saw at Hampton 
Court in 1592 :^ " In the middle of the first and principal 
court stands a splendid high and massy fountain, with an 
ingenious water-work, by which you can, if you hke, make 
the water to play upon the ladies and others who are standing 
by, and give them a thorough wetting." Of this same fountain 
Norden wrote in 1598, " Queen Elizabeth hathe of late caused 
a very beautiful fountaine there to be erected in the second 
court, which graceth the Pallace, and serveth to great and 
necessarie use ; the fountaine was finished in 1590, not without 
great charge." Another of the same sort was to be seen at 
Whitehall, and is described by Hentzner, in 1596 : "A jet 
d'eau with a sundial, which, while strangers are looking at it 
a quantity of water forced by a wheel which the gardener turns 
at a distance, through a number of little pipes, plentifully 
sprinkles those that are standing round." Hentzner also 
visited Nonsuch, and notices several fountains. In the " privy 
gardens " were two " that spurt water one round the other like 
a pyramid upon which are perched small birds that stream 
water out of their bills." In the " Grove of Diana," was one 
" with Actaeon turned into a stag as he was sprinkled by the 
goddess and her nymphs," and a " pyramid of marble full of 
concealed pipes which spurt upon all that come near." The 
word "jet d'eau " is usually used by contemporary writers 
for such fountains, and seems to point to their introduction 
from France. 

Other pieces of water were admitted into gardens ; like 
the trout stream running through the orchard at Littlecote, 
or the stream in the Deanery garden at Winchester, where 

^ MS. letter at Loseley, Surrey. 

2 Translation, 1602, printed in England as Seen by Foreigners, by 
Brenchley Rye, 1865. 



112 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Isaak Walton used to fish. Beddington (in Surrey), which 
belonged to Francis Carew, was described by Wurmsser von 
Vendenheyn, in 1610, as " one of the most pleasant and 
ornamental gardens in England, with many beautiful streams." 
At Theobalds and Hatfield there was water. At Hatfield 
the banks of the stream in what was called the dell were 
beautified with flower-beds, and sundry arbours and walks, 
which were connected with the vineyard on the opposite bank 
by ornamental bridges. The works were designed and carried 
out by Mountain Jennings, gardener to the first Earl of Salis- 
bury, A Frenchman, named Simon Sturtivant, planned some 
elaborate water-works, which were never executed owing to 
the Earl's death in 1612, as also did Soloman de Caux. One 
jet d'eau, however, from a design of the latter, was made at 
a cost of £113, and consisted of a marble basin with a statue 
of Neptune ; 310 pounds of solder were used to cast the figure, 
which was probably gilded afterwards.^ De Caux was the 
designer of the gardens at Wilton, for the Earl of Pembroke, 
where there were " foure fountaynes with statues of marble in 
their midle," and " two Ponds with Fountaynes and two 
collumnes in the middle, casting water all their height, which 
causeth the moveing and turning of two crownes at the top of 
the same." Besides this, the river passed through the garden, 
and was spanned by an ornamental bridge. The latter was 
removed later on, and the well-known work of Inigo Jones built 
in its place. 

The garden at Theobalds is also described by Hentzner in 
1 59 1 : " In the gallery was painted the genealogy of the kings 
of England ; from this place one goes into the garden, encom- 
passed with water, large enough for one to have the pleasure 
of going in a boat, and rowing between the shrubs ; here are 
a great variety of trees and plants, labyrinths made with a 
great deal of labour, a jet d'eau with its bason of white marble, 
and columns and pyramids of wood and other materials up 
and down the garden. After seeing these, we were led by the 
gardener into the summer-house, in the lower part of which, 
built semicircularly, are the twelve Roman Emperors in white 
marble and a table of truck-stone ; the upper part of it is set 
From family MSS. belonging to the Marquess of Salisbury. 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 1I3 

round with cisterns of lead into which the water is conveyed 
through pipes, so that fish may be kept in them, and in summer- 
time they are very convenient for bathing. In another room 
for entertainment very near this, and joined to it by a Httle 
bridge, was a noble table of red marble." 

Having now completed the survey of the several features of 
an Elizabethan garden, terraces, walks, alleys, mazes, mounts, 
arbours, fountains, and streams having been looked at one by 
one, it only remains to take a glance at it as a whole. The 
two following descriptions of a garden take in all these details, 
and are both contemporary, although from two very different 
sources. One is the description of a stage arranged to re- 
present a beautiful garden, on the occasion of the performance 
of a " Maske of Flowers," by the gentlemen of Gray's Inn, at 
Whitehall, upon Twelfth Night, 1613, " being last of the 
solemnities and magnificences which were performed at the 
marriage of the Earl of Somerset and Lady Francis, daughter 
of the Earle of Suffolke, Lord Chamberlaine ;"i the other is 
from Spenser's Faerie Queene, the lines in which he pictures a 
perfect garden, a " second Paradise." 



The Maske of Flowers. 

" The Daunce ended, the lowd musicke sounded. The 
Trauers being drawne, was seen a garden of a glorious and 
strange beauty, cast into foure quarters, with a crosse walke 
and alHes compassing each quarter. In the middle of the 
crosse walke stood a goodly Fountaine, raised on foure columnes 
of Silver. On the toppes whereof strode foure statues of silver, 
which supported a bole in circuite containing foure and twenty 
foote, and was raysed from the ground nine foot in height, in 
the middle whereof upon scrowles of silver and gold, was 
placed a globe garnished with 4 golden maske heads out of 
the which issued water into the bole, aboue stood a golden 
Neptune in height 3 foote holding in his hand a Trident. The 
garden walls were of brick artificially painted in Perspective, 

^ This Maske was printed in 1614 by N. D. for Robert Wilson. It 
is extremely rare ; the quotation is made from a perfect copy belonging 
to Mrs. Rowley Smith, Plawhatch, Bishop's Stortford, 

8 



114 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

all along which were placed fruite trees with artificiall leaues 
and fruite. The garden within the wall was rayled about with 
rayles of three foote high, adorned with Ballesters of Siluer, 
between which were placed pedestalls beautified with trans- 
parent lights of variable colours, vpon the Pedestalls stood 
siluer columnes, upon the toppes whereof were personages of 
golde, Lions of golde and Vnicornes of silver. Every personage 
and beast did hold a torchet burning that gaue light and lustre 
to the whole fabrique. Euery quarter of the garden was finely 
hedged about with a lowe hedge of Cipresse and Juniper ; the 
knottes within set with artificiall flowers. In the two first 
quarters, were two Piramides, garnished with golde and siluer, 
and ghstering with transparent lights, resembling carbuncles, 
saphires, and rubies. In every corner of each quarter were 
great pottes of gilliflowers, which shadowed certaine lights 
placed behind them, and made resplendent and admirable lustre. 
The two further quarters were beautified with Tulipaes of 
diuers colours, and in the middle, and in the corners of the said 
quarters, were set great tufts of seuerall kindes of flowers re- 
ceiving lustre from secret lights placed behind them. At the 
farther end of the garden was a mount raised by degrees, 
resembling bankes of earth, couered with grasse ; on the top 
of the mount stood a goodly arbour substantially made, and 
couered with artificiall trees, and with arbour flowers, as 
eglantine, honnysuckles, and the like. The arbour was in length 
three and thirtie foot, in height one and twenty, supported 
with termes of gold and silver. It was diuided into sixe double 
arches and three doores answerable to the three walks of the 
garden. In the middle part of the arbour rose a goodly large 
turret, and at either end a smaller. Vpon the toppe of the 
mount, on the front thereof, was a banke of flowers, curiously 
painted behind, while within the arches the maskers sate 
vnseene. Behind the garden, ouer the toppe of the arbour, 
were set artificiall trees, appearing like an orchard ioyning to 
the garden, and ouer all was drawne in perspective a fermament 
like the skies in a cleere night. Vpon a grassy seate under the 
arbor, sate the garden gods, in number twelue, apparrelled 
in long roabes of greene rich taffata cappes on their heads, and 
chaplets of flowers. In the midst of them sat Primaura, at 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 115 

whose intreaty they descended to the stage, and marching up 
to the king, sung to lutes and theorboes." 



Faerie Queene. 

" Fresh shadows fit to shroud from sunny ray : 

Fair lawns, to take the sun in season due ; 
Sweet springs, in which a thousand nymphs did play 

Soft-running brooks, that gentle slumber drew ; 
High-reared mounts, the lands about to view ; 

Low-looking dales, disloign'd^ from common gaze ; 
Delightful bow'rs, to solace lovers true ; 

False labyrinths, fond runner's eyes to daze. 
All which by Nature made did Nature 'self amaze. 

And all without were walks and alleys dight. 
With divers trees enranged in even ranks ; 

And here and there were pleasant arbours pight, 
And shady seats, and sundry flow'ring banks, 

To sit and rest the walker's weary shanks."^ 

^ =remoie from. ^ Book IV., c. x., 24. 



8—2 



CHAPTER VII 

KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER ELIZABETH AND JAMES I. 

" Whose golden gardens seeme th' Hesperides to mock, 
Nor these the Damson wants nor daintie Abricock 
Nor pippin, which we hold of kernel fruits the king, 
The Apple-Orendge, then the sauory Russetting, 
The Peare-maine which to France long ere to us was knowne, 
Which carefuU Frut'rers now haue denizend our owne 

Hi H: :(; He 3|: 4c 

The sweeting, for whose sake the Plowboyes oft make warre, 
The Wilding, Costard, then the wel-known Pomwater 
And Sundry other fruits of good yet severall taste 
That haue their sundry names in sundry counties plac't." 

Drayton : Polyolbion. 

THE changes in the kitchen, or " cooks-garden,"^ were not 
so marked as in the garden " of pleasant flowers."^ As 
the flower-garden lay in front of the house, " in sight and full 
prospect of all the chief and choicest roomes of the house ; 
so contrariwise, your herbe garden should be on the one or 
other side of the house ... for the many different sents that 
arise from the herbes, as cabbages, onions, etc., are scarce well 
pleasing to perfume the lodgings of any house." This is 
certainly a change from the gardens of earlier times, when 
herbs covered more or less the whole area of the average 
garden, when groundsel was allowed a place with leeks, thyme, 
and lettuce, and was classed among garden herbs indiscrimin- 
ately with periwinkles, roses, and violets. 

Holinshed (died 1580), describing England in his day, points 
out that the cultivation of vegetables was greatly increased, 
and says that vegetables " have been very plentiful in this 

^ Letter from Peter Kemp to William Cecil, 1561. ^ Parkinson. 

116 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 117 

land in the time of the first Edward, and after his daies, but 
in process of time they grew also to be neglected, so that from 
Henry the Fourth till the latter end of Henry the Seventh 
and beginning of Henry the Eighth, there was little or no use 
of thenl in England, but they remained either unknown or 
supposed as food more meet for hogs and savage beasts to feed 
upon than mankind. Whereas in my time their use is not 
onelie resumed among the poore commons, I meane of melons, 
pompions, gourds, cucumbers, radishes, skirets, parsnips, 
carrets, cabbages, nauewes, turnips, and all kinds of salad 
herbes, but also feed upon as deintie dishes at the tables of 
delicate merchants, gentlemen and the nobilitie, who make 
their prouision yearelie for new seeds out of strange countries." 
Holinshed was writing to extol Ehzabeth's reign, and though 
a faithful chronicler of contemporary events, would be tempted 
to colour them in order to enhance the glory of the period he 
was describing. Although vegetables were now more fashion- 
able and more used, still, from what is known of the gardens 
of earher times, it seems incredible that the neglect of them 
had been so entire as Holinshed would have us believe. 
Parkinson advises some vegetable seeds to be obtained from 
abroad, especially melons, but says of many of those on Holin- 
shed's list of seeds to be obtained from " strange countries, 
Redish, Lettice, Carrots, Parsneps, Turneps, Cabbages, and 
Leekes . . . our English seede ... is better than any that cometh 
from beyond the seas." 

A striking proof of the progress gardening was making during 
this period was the growing importance of those practising the 
craft in and around London, until at length, in the third year 
of King James I., they attained the dignified position of a 
Company of the City of London, incorporated by Royal charter. 
In that year all those " persons inhabiting within the Cittie 
of London and sixe miles compas therof doe take upon them 
to use and practice the trade, crafte, or misterie of gardening, 
planting, grafting, setting, sowing, cutting, arboring, kocking, 
mounting, covering, fencing and removing of plantes, herbes, 
seedes, fruit trees, stock sett, and of contryving the conveyances 
to the same belonging, were incorporated by the name of 
Master Wardens, Assistants and Comynaltie of the Companie 



ii8 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

of Gardiners of London."^ Thomas Young was appointed first 
Master, and seven years was the term of apprenticeship to the 
Company. It was hoped that the formation of this Guild would 
put a stop to frauds practised by gardeners in the City, who 
sold dead trees and bad seeds " to the great deceit and loss " 
of their customers. But it appears that these abuses continued 
to exist, and a second Charter was granted in the fourteenth 
year of James I., and the Company was invested with further 
privileges. No person was allowed to " use or exercise the 
art or misterie of gardening, within the said area, without the 
licence and consent "^ of the Company, nor were any persons 
who had not served their apprenticeship, and received the 
freedom of the Company, permitted to sell any garden-stuff, 
except within certain hours, and in such places and markets 
as were open to other foreigners who had not the freedom of 
the City. The Company were also permitted to seize any 
" plants, herbs or roots that were exposed for sale by any un- 
licenced person, and distribute them among the poor of the place 
where such forfeitures shall be taken." And it was also 
lawful for any four members of the Guild " to search and 
viewe all manner of plants, stocks, setts, trees, seedes, shppes, 
roots, flowers, hearbes and other things that shall be sould or 
sett to sale in any markett within the Cittie of London and 
sixe myles about," and to " burn or otherwise consume " all 
that was found to be " unwholesome, dry, rotten, deceitfull or 
unprofitable." Wilham Wood was elected first Master under 
the new charter. There were two Wardens, the number of 
Assistants was increased to twenty-four, a Beadle was ap- 
pointed, and the Company was granted a livery. The rights 
and privileges of the Company were again confirmed by 
Charles L, in 1635. The Court of Aldermen had never been 
favourable to the new Company, and did not assist to main- 
tain the powers of the gardeners to regulate their craft, and 
the abuses continued to exist. In May, 1617, Sir Robert 
Naunton wrote in the King's name from Holyrood to the 
Lord Mayor, pointing out that the admission of the Gardeners 
to the freedom of the City could not be in any way prejudicial, 

^ From the original charter belonging to the Company. 
^ Second Charter, 161 6, in the possession of the Company. 




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KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 119 

but would tend to the reformation of disorders.-^ This admoni- 
tion from the King, following the grant of his second charter, 
did not have the desired effect, for the Gardeners were not 
admitted by the Corporation until 1659. The arms are a 
man digging, and the supporters two female figures with 
cornucopiae ; the crest, a basket of fruit, and the motto, " In 
the sweat of thy browes shalt thou eate thy bread. "^ These 
arms were adopted by the Company in the time of James I., 
but had never been registered until 1905, when they received 
confirmation from King Edward VII. Although licensed by 
the Charter to have a Hall in which to assemble, they never 
appear to have possessed one, and their courts were for many 
years held at Freemasons' Hall, and afterwards at Joiners' 
Hall. No landed property is owned by the Gardeners, but 
they formerly had a considerable mortgage interest in land at 
Horselydown in Bermondsey, which, however, they parted 
with in 1700. The Company has long ceased to exercise 
many of its privileges, but it still flourishes, and ranks 
sixty-sixth among the City Guilds. In 1903 an old chest 
came to light in the Guildhall, containing a number of docu- 
ments belonging to the Company, which supply some of the 
links which were missing in its later history. The chain of 
three hundred years' quiet business and work is now complete,^ 
and the Gardeners with renewed vigour turn their attention 
to more modern ways of encouraging profitable horticulture. 

All herbs already in cultivation were retained by J acobean gar- 
deners, chiefly for their medicinal properties, which were in many 
cases both varied and comprehensive. For instance, decoctions 
of " Blessed Thistle," or Carduus benedictus, either the leaves 
ground, or the juice drunk, or the leaves applied outwardly, 

^ Remembrancia, Guildhall. 

^ Arms. — On a shield representing a landscape the figure of a man 
habited about the body with a skin, delving the ground with a spade, 
all proper. Crest. — On a wreathe argent and vert, a basket of flowers 
and fruit proper. Supporters. — On either side a female figure proper, 
vested argent, wreathed about the temples with flowers, and supporting 
on the exterior arm a cornucopia proper. Motto. — " In the sweat of 
thy brows shalt thow eate thy bread." 

^ The Gardeners' Company : a Short Chronological History, 1605- 
1907, with an Introduction by William Thomas Crosweller, Past Master. 
London, privately printed, 1908. 



120 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

were supposed to cure deafness, giddiness, loss of memory, the 
plague, ague, swellings or wounds, the bites of serpents or 
mad dogs, and many other complaints. With faith in such 
a catalogue of its uses, it is not astonishing that the " Blessed 
Thistle " was cultivated in every garden. Another plant that 
was grown in all gardens, from the tenth century onwards, 
was the Mandrake [Mandr agora vernalis and autumnalis). 
More ridiculous superstitions cluster round this plant than are 
attached to any other. The roots were supposed to resemble 
the figure of a man, and to possess certain mystic powers, there- 
fore spurious roots were manufactured in this form, and sold as 
charms. It was said to shriek when pulled from the ground, 
and the sound was so horrible that anyone who heard it went 
out of his mind or died. Shakespeare refers to this superstition : 

." And shrieks like Mandrakes torn out of the earth, 
That Hving mortals, hearing them, run mad." 

Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Scene 3. 

Not only in the Herbals proper, but in almost every practical 
work on gardening, the " vertues and physic helps " of each 
flower are enumerated. Thomas Hill devotes four pages to the 
" physicke helps and worthie secrets of the Cole wort," or 
cabbage. Even Parkinson finds some medicinal use for nearly 
every plant, and only a few " are wholly spent for their flowers 
sake ";^ even of tulips he confesses to have " made trial," and 
preserved the bulbs in sugar, and found them pleasant. " That 
the roots are nourishing there is no doubt ... for divers have 
had them sent by their friends from beyond sea, and mis- 
taking them to be onions, have used them as onions in their 
pottage or broth, and never found any cause of mislike, or any 
sense of evil quality produced by them, but accounted them 
sweet onions."^ 

By far the most important introduction into the kitchen 
garden was the potato. The generally received idea is that the 
potato was first brought to Europe by Sir Walter Raleigh, from 
Virginia, but this is doubtful. There have been great discus- 
sions among botanists on the subject of its native habitat. 
That Sir Walter Raleigh and his companion, Thomas Herriott, 

^ Larkspur, Paradisus, p. 278. ^ Parkinson, Paradisus, p. 77. 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 121 

brought the potato back with them from the New World, in 
1585 or 1586, is a fact. But it was also brought to Europe by 
the Spaniards between 1580 and 1585. The potato has been 
found in a wild state only in Chili, but it is probable that before 
the arrival of the Spaniards in America the plant had spread 
by cultivation into Peru and New Granada. From thence it 
was most likely introduced, in the latter half of the sixteenth 
century, into that part of the United States now known as 
Virginia and North Carolina, and there discovered by Raleigh, 
unless he found it among the provisions of some Spanish ship 
captured by him on its way from Chili or Peru. Gerard gives 
a picture and account of the " potatoe of Virginia " {Solanum 
tuberosum) which " he had received " from that place. The 
original species still exists in cultivation in Europe, and differs 
but slightly from the ordinary varieties now grown. Gerard's 
description of the flower and root is accurate. He calls it " a 
meate for pleasure," being " either rosted in the embers, or 
boiled and eaten with oile, vinegar and pepper, or dressed any 
other way by the hand of some cunning in cookery." He thus 
describes the tuber : " Thicke, fat and tuberous, not much 
differing either in shape, colour, or taste from the common pota- 
toes, save that the rootes thereof are not so great nor long, some 
of them round as a ball, some ouall or egge fashion, some longer 
and others shorter, which knobbie rootes are fastened into the 
stalkes with an infinite number of threddie strings." " The 
common potato " he refers to is at first sight puzzling, but he 
really means the Batata or Sweet Potato, Ipomcea Batatas. 
The origin of this plant is also a subject of discussion ; America 
and Eastern Asia both lay claim to it, but the strongest evidence 
seems to point to its introduction from the New World. 
Christopher Columbus is supposed to have brought the plant 
back to Queen Isabella, and early in the sixteenth century it 
was cultivated in Spain. Both Gerard and Parkinson grew it 
in their gardens, but as it was always killed by the frost at the 
end of September, they never saw it in flower. Sweet potatoes 
were eaten in various ways, roasted, sopped in wine, or cooked 
with prunes, and conserves were made of them. They were 
sometimes called Skirrets of Peru. In the Index to the 
Theatrum Botanicum of Parkinson the reference is to " Potatoes 



122 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

of Spaine, Canada, Ginney and Virginia, etc." The Virginian 
" Battatas Virginiaca " are the true potatoes ; the others (about 
which there seemed to be some uncertainty, on account of the 
various-sized tubers brought by j Portuguese ships) are clearly 
sweet potatoes, or yams ; while the remaining variety, it is rather 
startling to find, were " Battatas of Canada, the French Bat- 
tatas or Hierusalem'¥ Artichokes. " We in England, frome 
some ignorant and idle heads, have called them Artichokes of 
Jerusalem, only because the root being boiled is in taste hke 
the bottom of an Artichoke head." " This plant has no simili- 
tude . . . with an Artichoke . . . neither came it from Jerusalem 
or out of Asia, but out of America."^ None of these authors 
make any attempt to account for Helianthus tuber osus being 
called " Jerusalem," but it can be explained, as the plant 
is a kind of sunflower or " Girosole," of which latter word 
" Jerusalem " is a corruption. Goodyer gives the history of its 
first introduction :^ " In anno 1617 I received two small roots 
thereof from Master Franqueuill of London . . . the one I 
planted, the other I gave to a friend ; mine brought mee a pecke 
of roots, wherewith I stored Hampshire." Of the use of these 
Parkinson writes : " The Potatos of Canada are by reason of 
their great increasing, grown to be so common with us here at 
London, that even the most vulgar begin to despise them, 
whereas when they were first received among us they were 
dainties for a Queen, but the too-frequent use, especially being 
so plentiful and cheap, hath rather bred a loathing than a liking 
of them." Goodyer also classes them as " meat more fit for 
swine than men." 

S The Skirret [Suim sisarum) ranked among favourite vege- 
tables. It was, as Parkinson says, " everywhere sowen or 
planted in gardens, and with us rather soun than planted, for 
soune among Onions the one will not hinder the growth of the 
other. "^ " The roote is composed of divers small long round 
white roots set together at one head . . . with a small pith 
within them, and very pleasant to be eaten." " Being dressed 
according to every one's hking doe nourish well," and it " is 
more delicate " than a parsnip. He identifies the Skirrit with 

^ Johnson's edition of Gerard's Herbal, 1633. * Ibid. 

^ Theafrum Botanicum, 1640. 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 123 

the sisarum or siser " of the ancients," as it agreed with the 
description given by Dioscorides, " who saith it is ' pleasant to 
the pallate/ and he sheweth plainely that it hath a nerve or 
string in the roote which is to be taken away after boyling, 
that the rest may be eaten with the more pleasure, and such 
hath this skirret and no other roote that either then was or 
now is edible." Some of Parkinson's contemporaries disagreed, 
and thought the parsnip was the true siser, and the matter is 
still undecided. The native place of the plant is also doubtful, 
though probably China. Another theory is that it came from 
Siberia, and through Germany became known to the ancients. 
It was grown in England in Tudor times, and does not appear 
to have been of recent introduction. The word " Skirret " 
means the same as the Danish name of the plant sokeret, or 
sugar root.^ 

Both the ordinary artichoke {Cynara Scolymus) and the 
cardoon {Cynara Cardunculus) were grown, but the latter were 
never as popular in England as they were abroad, probably 
because " we cannot yet find the true manner of dressing them, 
that our country may take delight therein. "^ The artichokes 
grown in England were considered the best, and plants were 
exported to Italy, France, and the Low Countries. 

Greater attention was paid to the culture of melons. All 
gardening books give instructions for growing them, apparently 
without great success, for Parkinson is honest enough to say : 
" Muske melons have been begun to be nursed up, but of late 
dayes in this Land, wherin although many have tried and en- 
deavoured to bring them to perfection, yet few have attained 
unto it." The seeds were planted in April, in a hotbed, and 
carefully covered with straw ; when they had sprung up they 
were given an hour's sun in the morning, and re-covered, then, 
when they had " gotten four leaves," are planted on a well- 
manured sloping bank in a sunny sheltered place, and covered 
with a pot, or some shelter, until they were well grown. Sir 
Hugh Piatt writes : " When your mellons are as big as Tennis 
balls, then if you nip off at a joynt, all the shoots that are 

^ De Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants. 

^ Parkinson. " i oz. of Cardone " seed in 1761 cost is. {MSS. 
Household Accounts, Stonor). 



124 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

beyond them, the mellons will grow exceeding great." He 
also gives a direction learned from " Mr. Nicholson Gardiner." 
" Lay your young Mellons upon Ridge-tiles to keep them from 
the ground, and for reflection," and he suggests that the seed 
should be steeped in milk for twenty-four hours before sowing. 
Parkinson says the best seed came from Spain, and not from 
France, but some seed was saved in England. Gerard saw 
some good melons at the " Queene's House at St. James," 
grown by Master Fowle, and also " great plenty " at Lord 
Sussex's at " Bermondsey by London." It was usual to eat 
them with pepper and salt, and " to droun them in wine for 
feare of doing more harme."^ These " musk-melons " are 
Cucumis melo, the same as are now termed melons, and they 
were " of a russet colour and green underneath . . . deep- 
furrowed and ribbed . . . the inward substance is yellow, which 
only is eaten. ^ " Melons or pompions," include pumpkins and 
gourds of all kinds. These were eaten especially by the poorer 
classes, cooked in various ways. Parkinson says they eat as 
" a dainty dish " pompions, the seeds taken out and filled with 
pippins, and baked altogether. 

Vegetables then did not have at all the same relative value as 
nowadays ; some which are now scarcely grown, such as skirrets, 
holding a prominent place, while others were not so much 
valued. The heading of a chapter in Hill's Gardener's Laby- 
rinth will illustrate this fact. " What care and skill is required 
in the sowing and ordering of the Buckshorne, Strawberrie 
and Mustarde Seede." Buckshorne is Plantago coronopus, and 
was largely used in salads, " especially in sallets in the sommer 
time, although the same have no apt succour nor taste." 
The strawberry. Hill continues, " requires small labour, but 
by diligence of the Gardener, becommeth so great, that the 
same yeeldeth faire and big Beries as the Beries of the Bramble 
in the hedge. . . . The Berries in sommer time, eaten with 
creame and sugar, is accounted a great refreshing to men, but 
more commended, being eaten with wine and sugar." Mustard 
was grown only for the seeds, not for the use of the seedlings 
in salad. The seed pounded with vinegar was eaten " with 
any grosse meates, either fish or flesh. "^ Hill gives a long 
^ Parkinson. - Ibid. ^ Gerard. 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 125 

list of complaints it will cure. " The juice taken diuers 
mornings fasting doth procure a good memorie." He recom- 
mends it to be dropped into the eyes to remove dimness of sight 
— one would have thought rather to ensure an opposite effect 
— and adds, the powder of the seeds taken as snuff " marvel- 
ously amendeth the braine " ! 

Nauewes and turnips, though spoken of separately, seem to 
be one and the same thing, as Hill says of them : " The pro- 
pertie many times of the ground dooth alter the Nauewe into 
a Turnup, and the Turnup into a Nauewe." He recommends 
poppies to be " sowne in the beedes among colewortes," which 
does not speak well for the cabbages. Beans were still largely 
grown by the poorer classes, but kidney beans, of which Gerard 
depicts eight sorts, two from America, were " a dish more often- 
times at rich men's tables than at the poor." Peas were sown 
at midsummer for autumn use, and also in August and Sep- 
tember for the following spring. Dried peas were used at " sea 
for them that go long voyages." The rouncial was still much 
grown, also the green and white hasting, called so because of its 
earliness. The following were also popular varieties : the sugar 
pease, the spotted, the grey, the pease without skins, and the 
Scottish or tufted, or the rose, and the early French, " which 
some call the Fulham Pease, because those grounds thereabouts 
do bring them soonest forward for any quantity, although some- 
times they miscarry by their hast and earliness."^ The " Rams 
ciche " or " ciche pease " {Cicer arietinum) was occasionally 
grown. Turner says he had seldom seen it in England, and 
Gerard says it "is soun in our London gardens, but not 
common." This " Chick Pea " never became popular. Miller, 
writing a hundred years later, says it was much grown in France 
and Spain, but rarely sown in England. 

Any practical gardener, if asked the use of an orchard, would, 
doubtless, reply that the use is to insure a sufficient supply of 
fruit ; but Lawson declares that no one can deny " that the 
principal end of an orchard is the honest delight of one wearied 
with the workes of his lawful calling "; and, again, he speaks 
from experience, being himself an old man, and says that the 
orchard " takes away the tediousnesse and heavie load of three 

^ Parkinson. 



126 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

or four score years." What a truly magical power must an Eliz- 
abethan orchard have possessed ! Such an introduction makes 
one keen to leave the kitchen-garden, and traverse again the 
flower-garden, on the other side of which in all probability would 
be found the orchard. It was thoughtfully put on the north-east 
when it was possible, that the fruit-trees might help to shelter 
the more tender plants of the flower-garden, and some tall forest 
trees, " Walnuts, Elms, Oaks or Ashes," were planted at a good 
distance beyond, to shelter but not overshadow the orchard. A 
garden much on this plan is that of Castle Bromwich, laid out 
about the year 1585. The flower-garden is in front of the house, 
and on either side lie the fruit and kitchen gardens concealed 
from view by red-brick walls, now thickly covered with climbing 
plants. These can be seen in the old plan or bird's-eye view, 
and also in the picture of the garden as it now is, which is taken 
in the centre or flower-garden, looking towards the wall which 
shuts out the kitchen-garden. From the central garden a flight 
of stone steps descend to a lower level, laid out in shrubberies 
intersected by grass walks and wonderful old cut hedges of 
holly, yew, box, hornbeam, and privet, and an archery ground 
or raised glade of green turf 180 yards long. The orchard in 
this case lies to the south-west of the upper or central garden, 
from which it is separated, as is the kitchen-garden, by a high 
brick wall. 

The cost of building a wall all round the fruit-garden was 
so great, " as the extent of an orchard was much larger than 
that of a garden, and it would require more cost, which every- 
one cannot undergo," so instead of brick, mud walls, wooden 
paHngs, or a quickset hedge were substituted. But Parkinson 
recommends a wall of brick or stone, in spite of the expense, 
" as the gaining of ground and profit of the fruit trees planted 
there against, will in short time recompense that charge." " On 
the south wall your tenderest and earliest fruits, as Apricocks, 
Peaches, Nectarins, and May or early cherries, should be set on 
the east and north, and on the west, plums and quinces, spread 
upon and fastened to the walls by the help of tacks and other 
means to have the benefit of the immediate reflexe of the 
sunne."^ This arrangement of the walls was suited only to the 
^ Lawson, New Orchard, 1618. 




CASTLE BROMWICH. 
From Diigdalc's "Antiquities of Warwickshire" 1730. 




CASTLE BROMWICH. 

At the cud of the nincteeuili century. 



To face page 126. 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 127 

southern counties. Lawson writes that in his county (York- 
shire) the best fruit to grow was " Apples, Pears, Cherries, 
Filberds, red and white Pkims, Damsons and Bullaces," and he 
further adds, as a warning, " we do not meddle with apricockes, 
nor peaches, nor scarcely with quinces, which will not like in 
our colde parts." Allusions to the fruit trees trained against 
a wall occur in the poems and plays of the time. Marlowe 
mentions cherries on a wall, and Ben Jonson, in Every Man 
in his Own Humour (Act I., Scene i), makes Wellbred write to 
Edward Knowell, " Leave thy vigilant father alone to number 
over his green apricots evening and morning on the north-west 
wall." The idea of thus growing fruit was of recent date. 
Sir Hugh Piatt, writing in 1600, says, " Quinces growing against 
a wall, lying open to the sun, and defended from cold winds, 
eat most deliciously. This secret the Lord Darcey brought 
out of Italy, quaere, would this suit of all other fruits ?" 

In front of the trees trained to the wall, or running parallel 
with the outer hedge, was a path, and this was bordered with a 
row of low-trained fruit-trees, " Cornelian cherry trees plashed 
low, or gooseberries, curran trees, or the like," or " pippins, 
Pomewaters or any other sort of apple, planted " all along the 
side-walk. There were arbours at the corners of the walks, and 
banks of camomile or other sweet herbs on which to rest. The 
paths were well sanded, and under the trees " green grass kept 
finely shorn." Between the raspberries and currants beside 
the path, the ground, says Lawson, should be " powdered with 
strawberries." In fact, all was done that the orchard might 
be well ordered, and made fit " for refreshing one's spirits." 
The arbours were much the same as those in the garden, and 
like them were often raised on mounts. In such an arbour in 
his orchard in Gloucestershire, Shallow invited Falstaff to 
" eat a last year's pippin of my own grafiing," with a dish of 
Leathercoates. The Leathercoat was " a good winter apple of 
no great bignesse, but of a very good and sharp taste." ^ 

Much care was taken to preserve pippins for a length of 
time. Lawson gives directions for gathering and storing them. 
" You should have a long ladder of light firre, also a gathering 
apron like a pocke before you made of purpose, or a wallet hung 

* Parkinson. 



12$ A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

on a bough, or a basket with a sive bottom ... an hooke to 
pull boughes to you." For storing, apples and pears should be 
laid " in a drie loft ... in a heape ten or fourteen days, that 
they may sweate " ; they must then be wiped and dried " with 
a clean and softe cloth," and afterwards laid between layers 
of straw. Sir Hugh Piatt gives a recipe for " apples kept with- 
out wrinkles." " Gather not your Pippins till the full moon, 
after Michaelmas ; so may you keepe them a whole yeare with- 
out shrinking ; and so of grapes and all other fruits." 

" Our orchards," writes Holinshed, " were never furnished 
with such good fruit, nor with such varietie as at the present." 
The varieties of almost every kind of fruit had been increased 
by cultivation. The number of apples was " infinite," and as 
Gerard and Parkinson found it quite impossible to give the 
names of all the kinds grown in their time, it would be useless 
to attempt such a catalogue now. Gerard gives woodcuts 
of the " Pomewater tree." " The Baker's ditch apple tree," 
" the King of Apples," " The Quining, or Queene of Apples," 
and " the Sommer " and " Winter Pearmain." Parkinson 
says of the Queen Apple, two sorts, both " great, fair, red, and 
well relished," and Ben Jonson thus refers to the same apple : 

"Only your nose inclines 
That side that's next the sun to the queene apple." 

" The golding pippin," Parkinson writes, " is the greatest and 
best of all sorts of pippins." He gives also the Summer, 
French, Russet, spotted and yellow pippins, and adds, " I know 
no sort of pippins but are excellent, good, well-relished fruits." 
He is not so lavish in his praise of some of the other sorts of 
apples, as " The Paradise Apple," " not to be commended," 
or " Twenty sorts of sweetings and none good." He names 
several from France, and brackets together " Pome de Ram- 
bures, de Capandas and de Calual, as all fair and good apples 
brought from France." The following are a few names from 
among those which he calls " very good," or " fair," " great," 
" goodly," and " very well rellished." " Pearmain, Russeting, 
Broading, Flower of Kent, Davie Gentle, Costards Harvey, 
Deusan or Apple- John, Kentish Codlin, and Worcester apple." 
Which were the best known and most popular varieties 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAIMES I. 129 

can be judged from the casual references to them in writings of 
the period, such as : 

" In July come ginnitings and quadlings." 

Bacon, Essay on Gardens. 

" Ripe as a pomewater." 

Love's Labour's Lost, Act. IV., Scene 3. 

" I am withered like an old Apple-John." 

I Henry IV., Act. III., Scene 3. 

" Pippins, caraways and leathercoats." 

2 Henry IV., Act V., Scene 3. 

" And after pleasing gifts for her purvey 'd. 
Queen-apples, and red cherries from the tree." 

Faerie Queene, Canto VI., fragment of Book VII. 

" Tho' would I seeke for Queene Apples unrype." 

Shephearde's Calendar, June. 

" Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy : as 
a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling when 'tis almost an 
apple." — Twelfth Night, Act I., Scene 5. 

Cooking apples were baked or roasted or dressed in many other 
ways, and the choicer varieties were served, as now, for dessert 
at the end of dinner, 

' ' I will make an end of my dinner ; 
There's pippins and cheese to come." 

Merry Wives of Windsor, Act. I., Scene 2. 

" The best sort of apples serve at the last course of the table, 
in most men's houses of account, where, if they grow any rare 
or excellent fruit, it is then set forth to be seen and tasted."^ 
Cider was still made in quantities, and the largest orchards 
were of cider apples, but there was yet another use made of 
this fruit. " The pulp of apples and swine's grease and rose- 
water " was made into an ointment, " used to beautifie the 
face," " which is called in shops pomatum."^ 

The Quince, which is now almost entiriely neglected, received 
much attention. Hugh Piatt says they " may well be grafted 
on a medlar " (but not a medlar on a quince, proved by Master 
Hill) . Gerard gives three varieties, Parkinson six, and writes : 
" There is no fruit growing in this land that is of so many 
excellent uses as this." 

^ Parkinson. ^ Gerard. 

9 



130 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

The varieties of pears were even more numerous than of 
apples. Gerard says he knew someone who grew " at the point 
of three score sundrie sorts of Peares, and those exceeding good ; 
not doubting but if his minde had beene to seeke after multi- 
tudes he might have gotten togither the like number of those 
worse kindes ... to describe each pear apart, were to send an 
owle to Aifchens, or to number those things that are without 
number." The eight varieties he figures are the following : 
"the Jenetting, Saint James, RoyaIl,Burgomot, Quince, Bishop, 
Katherine, and the Winter Peare." The Katherine pear was a 
popular variety, " known to all," as these lines in " A Ballad 
upon a Wedding," by Sir John Suckling (1609-41) testify : 

" Her cheek so rare a white was on, 
No daisy makes comparison ; 
Who sees them is undone ; 
For streaks of red were mingled there. 
Such as are on a Catherine pear. 
The side that's next the sun." 

The various kinds of " Bon Cretien " were among the best 
grown. One sort Parkinson mentions as the ten-pound pear, 
or " Bon Cretien " of Syon, " so called because the grafts cost 
the master so much the fetching by the messenger's expenses, 
when he brought nothing else." The same pears did not suit 
all counties alike ; some kinds were more grown in one part 
than another — as, for instance, the Arundell and the Robert, 
which were specially plentiful in Norfolk and Suffolk. Wardens 
were still reckoned among the best cooking pears. Parkinson 
notes " the pear of Jerusalem being baked it is as red as the 
best Warden, whereof Master William Ward, of Essex, assured 
me, who is the chief keeper of the King's granary at Whitehall." 
A glance down Parkinson's list, containing some sixty-five 
sorts, some of which are quoted already, shows several names 
still familiar in the nineteenth century, such as Bon Chretien, 
Bergamot, Windsor, and " Pear Gergonell." Several varieties 
of pears are noted by Lyte in the copy of Dodoen's Herbal, 
now in the British Museum, annotated by him, and marked 
with the alterations he intended to make in his translation. 
A list of names of pears in his handwriting is also preserved 
by his descendants, which shows how much attention he gave 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 131 

to this fruit. BuUeyn, in his work on Health,^ mentions a 
" kind of peares growing in the City of Norwich, called black 
friers' peare — very delicious and pleasant, and no lesse profit- 
able." " A phisition of the same citye called doctoure Mars- 
seilde, said he thought those peares without all comparison 
were the best that grow in any place of England." 

Bulleyn also remarks on the cherries growing in Norfolk. 
" In the county of Kent be growing great plentye of the fruite. 
So are there in a towne near unto Norwich, called Ketrein- 
ham."^ It is probably to the influence of the Huguenots in 
these two counties that the improvement in fruit culture — 
especially of the cherry — is owing. To these foreigners may 
also be ascribed the advance in favour of hop-growing which 
was manifested about this time. Several varieties of cherry 
were grown ; the best known were the Flanders, or Kentish, the 
Spanish, " Gascoigne," and Morello, also a variety called 
" Luke Warde's cherry, because he was the first that brought 
the same out of Italy. "^ Parkinson describes thirty-five named 
varieties. Sir Hugh Piatt gives an account of what he calls " a 
conceit of that delicate knight," Sir Francis Carew, at Bedding- 
ton, when Queen Elizabeth visited him there. He covered a 
cherry-tree with canvas kept damp, to retard the fruit, only 
removing " the tent when assured of her Majesties coming, so 
that she had cherries at least one moneth after all cherries had 
taken their farewell of England." 

The garden or " tame " sort " of Plummes are of diuers kindes, 
some white, some yellow, some blacke, some of the colour of a 
chesnet, and some of a lyght or clear redde ; and some great, 
and some small ; some sweet and dry, some fresh and sharpe, 
whereof eche kinde hath a particular name. The wilde Plummes 
are least of al, and are called slose, bullies, and snagges."'* It 
is evident from this description that the number of plums had 
greatly increased. John Tradescant was a great grower of 
plums, as of all fruit. He^ " hath wonderfully laboured to 
obtain all the rarest fruits he can hear of "; and also " Master 
John Millen, dwelling in Old Street, who from John Tradescant 

* A newe Book entituled the Gouernement of Healthe, William Bulle)^!, 

1558- 
^ Ketteringham, ^ Gerard. * Lyte's Herbal. ® Parkinson. 

9—2 



132 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

and all others that have good fruit hath stored himself with the 
best only, and he can sufficiently furnish any." Gerard says 
that the greatest variety of plums was to be found in the garden 
of Mr. Vincent Pointer, at Twickenham ; but he adds that " my 
selfe is not without some, and those rare and delicate." Mira- 
belle, or " Myrabolane," were grown. Parkinson gives sixty- 
one varieties by name, but he does not recommend them all ; 
some are only " reasonable good rellished," others " waterish," 
and " The Margate plum the worst of an hundred." The list in- 
cludes some "Mussell" plums, the same as the modern "muscle," 
so much used for grafting, and Damsons, also " The perdigon, 
a dainty good plum, early, blackish, and well rellished," 
doubtless the parent of the Perdrigon violet Hatif, and others. 
The Apricot, as already stated, was introduced in the Tudor 
period, was grown " in many gentlemen's gardens throughout 
all England." The " great apricock " and the two Mascolines 
of Parkinson are types still well known. He distinguishes six 
varieties in all. The Argier apricock seems rather of the 
" Musch Musch " type. It was brought by John Tradescant 
" returning from the Argier voyage, whither he went volun- 
tarily with the Fleet that went against the Pirates in the year 
1620."^ Sir Hugh Piatt gives many hints on the culture of this 
fruit. He writes : " A grafted Apricot is best, yet from the 
stone you shall have a fair Apricot." Again : " Mix cow-dung 
and horse-dung well rotted with fine earth and claret wine lees 
of each a like quantity, baring the roots of your trees in Janu- 
ary, February, and March ; and then apply of this mixture 
to the roots of your Apricot trees, and cover them with common 
earth. By this means Apricot trees as never bare before have 
brought forth great store of fruit. . . . This of Mr. Andr. Hill." 
Another of his observations on Apricots is worth recording. 
" Plant an Apricot in the midst of other plumme-trees round 
about it . . . then in an apt season bore through your plum- 
trees, and let in to every one of them one or two of the branches 
of your Apricot tree . . . and lute the holes up with tempered 
loame ; . . . and the next year cut off the branch from the 
Apricot tree. . . . Take away in time all the head of your plum 
tree, . . . and so you have gotten many Apricot trees out of 
^ Parkinson. " Argier " = Algiers. 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. I33 

one." Later on " And. Hill " is quoted again, and his advice 
is to plant the trees against an east wall, and to protect them 
with a " course cloth .... in the night or in cold weather." 
Piatt also mentions, as rather an unusual practice, that " Sir 
Francis Walsingham caused divers Apricock trees to be planted 
against a south Wall, and their Branches to be borne up also 
against the wall, according to the manner of vines, whereby his 
plumbs did ripen three or four weeks before any other." In 
1611, " ;^ioo was paid to William Hogan, keeper of His 
Magesties still-house and garden at Hampton Court, for plant- 
ing the walls of the said garden with apricot trees, peach trees, 
plum trees, and vines of choice fruits."-^ 

Gerard figures four varieties of peach. " The white peach 
with meate about the stone of a white colour ; the red peach 
with meate of a gallant red colour, like wine in taste and 
therefore marvellous pleasant ; the D'auant peach with meate 
of a golden colour ; and the yellow peach, of a yellow colour on 
the outside, and likewise on the inside ... of the greatest 
pleasure and best taste of all the other of his kinds." He 
makes no mention of the nectarine, which, however, by Par- 
kinson's time had become well known. Six varieties are de- 
scribed in a chapter to themselves, although he says " they 
have been with us not many years." He gives twenty varieties 
of peach, and a woodcut illustrates six of these ; two of them 
are considerably smaller than the apricot on the same plate. 
Although Piatt has faith that a peach grafted on a nut will 
have no kernel, he cannot quite believe — although he gives the 
recipe — that a peach-tree watered three days running with 
goat's milk, when beginning to flower, will produce pome- 
granates. Most of his other observations on their culture are 
practical and correct. They like, he says, a clay soil, and to 
be waterlogged at the roots destroys them. They will grow 
from stones, and bring forth a " kindly peach," but they thrive 
best when grafted on a plum-stock. Bacon mentions nec- 
tarines as coming in September, along with " peaches and 
melocotones." Of the latter, Parkinson writes it " is a yellow 
fair peach . . . and is better relished than any of them." 

The only " curran," so called by Gerard, is the small grape or 
^ Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, James I., by F. Devon, 1836. 



134 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

currant of Corinth, classed with grapes. The red currant is 
referred to under Gooseberries or Flaberries. Parkinson, how- 
ever, gives them a chapter to themselves, and explains the dif- 
ference between them and those " sold at the Grocers." He 
describes the red, white, and black kinds, and says the white 
are " more desired . . . because they are more dainty and lesse 
common."^ The fact that currants in Kent, the chief fruit- 
growing county, were called " gozel " or " gozell " seems to 
point to the introduction of some of the new varieties from 
France. The black were evidently not much in favour ; " both 
the leaves and fruite have a kinde of strong evill sent, but yet 
are wholesome, not so pleasant as any of the former [the red and 
white], and eaten by many.^ Of gooseberries there were four 
well-known varieties — " the common," the " red," the " blew," 
and " the hairy or prickely greene." Coles, writing a few years 
later than Parkinson, adds a fifth — " the great Dutch goose- 
berry " — and says all of these, " with divers others, do grow in 
many gardens about London in great abundance, whence they 
are carried into Cheapside and other places to be sold."^ Rasp- 
berries, both white and red, were grown, and were eaten " in 
summer-time, as an afternoon dish to please the taste of the sick 
as well as the sound. "^ The cornel-tree or Cornelian Cherry (Cor- 
nus mas) was introduced about this time, and found a place in 
orchards along with barberries, service-berries, and almond-trees. 
Before closing this rapid review of the fruit of this period, a 
few words must be said about vineyards and grapes, which 
were still grown, but not so much as in earlier times .^ Many of 
the larger gardens had vineyards attached. Barnaby Googe 
says they were invariably placed on the western side of the 
garden, and it is curious to note that such is the position of the 
one mentioned in Measure for Measure (Act IV., Scene i) : 

" He hath a garden circummured with brick, 
Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd ; 
And to that vineyard is a planched gate, 
That makes his opening with this bigger key. 
This other doth command a little door, 
Which from the garden to the vineyard leads." 



Paradisus in Sole, Parkinson, 1629. 

Theatrum Botanicum, Parkinson, 1640. 

Adam in Eden or Nature's Paradise, W. Coles, 1657. 

Paradisus, Parkinson. ^ See pp. 21-27. 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 135 

Gerard gives five pictures of what he calls " tame " or 
" manured " vines. He advises " shavings of horn disposed 
about the roots, to cause fertility." Parkinson's list includes 
twenty-three names. He says that Tradescant grew twenty 
sorts, but " he never knew how or by what name to call them." 
" The ordinary grape, both white and red, which excelleth 
crabs for verjuyce, and is not fit for wine with us," was probably 
what was usually grown in vineyards, the choicer sorts being 
only found, as these old writers would say, in the gardens of the 
curious. He has on his list black and white " Muscadine," and 
the " Frontignack " ; the other names are such as the " claret 
wine grape," " the Rhenish wine grape." Piatt gives several 
recipes for keeping grapes — in pots covered with sand, the 
bunch hung up with the end of the stalk stuck in an apple ; or 
he says they can be preserved on the vine by covering the 
bunches with oiled paper. He constantly refers to the vine- 
yard, and how to " order " and plant it. The way he classes 
the orchard and vineyard together shows the latter was by no 
means uncommon : " Master Pointer keepeth conies in his 
orchard, onely to keepe downe the grasse low ; . . . also in vine- 
yards the use is to turne up the ground with a shallow plough, 
as often as any grasse offereth to spring, but I think the preven- 
tion of grass in orchard and vineyard is much better, if it were 
not too costly." Piatt maintains that there is no reason why 
English wine should not be as good as that on the Continent. 
He attributes the ill-success in England to the bad way the 
vines were pruned, and he accuses " the extreme negligence and 
blockish ignorance of our people, who do most unjustly lay 
their wrongful accusations upon the soil, whereas the greatest, 
if not the whole fault, justly may be removed upon them- 
selves." 

The vineyards attached to the royal gardens at Windsor 
and Westminster were still flourishing. In 1618 fish-ponds 
were made in the " vine garden " at Westminster, " for the 
king's cormorants, ospreys and otters. "■'■ At Oatlands, in 
Surrey, there also appears to have been a vineyard, as pay- 
ments occur in 1619 for " planting of new and rare fruits, 
flowers, herbs, and trees," in the King's garden there, and " for 
^ Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, James I., by Devon, 1836. 



136 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

dressing and keeping the vines. "^ The first Earl of Salisbury 
planted a vineyard at Hatfield, on the north bank of the River 
Lea, on a piece of ground sloping to the south, hedged in with 
privet and sweet briar. Hatfield had been given to Cecil by 
James I., in 1607, in exchange for Theobalds, to which the King 
took a great fancy. This was the second time that Hatfield 
had changed hands in this way. The manor belonged to the 
Abbey of Ely before the Conquest, and after Ely became a 
bishopric, the bishops made their residence at Hatfield until 
Henry VIII. 's time. This King, also wishing to possess the 
place, effected an exchange of land with the Bishop. Ely was 
in early times famous for its vines, and doubtless vineyards 
existed also at Hatfield during the centuries it was Church 
property, so that when Cecil planted a vineyard it was no new 
experiment. Madame de la Boderie, wife of the French Am- 
bassador, sent thirty thousand vines to be set in the new vine- 
yard, which are referred to in the following letter to Cecil '? 
"... understanding your Lordship's speech yesterday, that 
you were about to send some present of gratification to Mme. 
de la Broderye in regard of your vines, Lest your Lordship's 
bounty which knows the true limitts of honor of it self, should be 
misledd by my disesteeming the things upon a sodayne when 
I valued them but att ;^4o I thought good to let your Lordship 
know before it be too late that I misreckned myselfe for 20,000 
at 8 crowns the thousand, cometh to near £50 sterling, besydes 
the cariage, and besydes, the ambassador sent me word yester- 
day by his maistr-d'Hostel that there are 10,000 more a coming 
which he hath consigned to be delivered heer to me for your 
Lordship's use." As these were more plants than the vineyard 
would hold, some were kept in a nursery to put later in the 
place of any that were " defectyve or dying." A few muscat, 
and other vines, not grown before in England, were brought 
from Paris by Tradescant, who was then director of Cecil's 
garden, and he also received five hundred plants from the 
Queen of France ; Pierre Collin and Jean Vallet, who probably 
brought over this present, were permanently engaged to plant 
and dress the vineyard. This vineyard does not appear to 

^ Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, James I., by Devon, July 23, 1619. 
2 From family papers belonging to the Marquess of Salisbury. 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 137 

have been kept up for many years, as the last reference to it 
among the family papers is dated 1638, in which year Lady 
Hatton sent some vine-cuttings. 

In spite of the efforts of the writers of the early seventeenth 
century, vine-culture was never really revived in England, 
and vineyards gradually ceased to be planted. A few isolated 
instances occur later on. Brandy is said to have been made 
at Beaulieu in the last century, and Fairchild, in 1722, had a 
flourishing vineyard in Hoxton. These were probably nearly 
the last serious attempts at vine-culture. 

In the writings of this period the ideas for protecting and 
sheltering delicate plants begin to appear, which a little later 
developed into orangeries and greenhouses, and finally into the 
hothouse and stove. Sir Hugh Piatt, especially, in the second 
part of the Garden of Eden, not printed until 1660, frequently 
mentions the possibility of growing plants in the house, and 
utilizing the fires in the rooms to force gilliflowers and carna- 
tions into early bloom. " I have known Mr. Jacob of the 
Glassehouse," he writes, " to have carnations all the winter 
by the benefit of a room that was neare his glassehouse fire." 
HoHnshed, while praising the orchards of his day, says, " I 
have seen capers, orenges and lemmons, and heard of wild 
olives growing here," but he does not say how they were pre- 
served from cold. Gerard also describes both oranges and 
lemons, but he is too honest to pretend that they grow in 
England. A few oranges, however, were successfully reared 
in this country. " I bring to your consideration," writes 
Parkinson, in the treatise on the Orchard, " the Orenge alone 
without mentioning Citron or Lemmon trees, in regard of the 
experience we have seen made of them in divers places. For 
the orenge tree hath abiden with some extraordinary looking 
[after it] and tending of it, when as neither of the other would 
by any means be preserved any long time." " They must," 
he goes on to say, be kept in " great square boxes, and lift there 
to and fro by iron hooks in the sides ... to place them in an 
house or close gallery in for the winter time . . . but no tent or 
mean provision will preserve them." Piatt suggests that if 
planted against a concave-shaped wall, lined with lead or tin 
to cause reflexion, they might " happily bear their fruit in 



138 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

our cold Clymate. Quaere, if these walls did stand so con- 
veniently, as they might also be continually warmed with 
kitchen fires ; as serving for Backs unto your chimneys, if so 
they should not likewise finde some little furtherance in their 
ripening." 

The experiment of growing lemons was tried by Lord 
Burghley. There are some interesting letters extant in which 
the history of the way in which the tree was procured is pre- 
served. Cecil wrote to Thomas Windebank, who was then in 
Paris, March 24th and 25th, 1651-62, saying he had heard from 
his son Thomas, that Mr. Carew was going to have certain trees 
sent home, and " I have already an orange tree ; and if the 
prise be not much, I pray you procure for me a lemon, a pome- 
granate, and a myrt tree ; and help that they may be sent 
home to London with Mr. Caroo's trees ; and beforehand send 
me in writing a perfect declaration how they ought to be used, 
kept and ordered." The answer to this letter is dated April 8th, 
1562, from Paris : " Sir, According to your commandment 
I have sent unto you by Mr. Caroo's man, Mdth his master's 
trees, a lemon tree and two myrte trees, in two pots, which 
cost me both a crown, and the lemon tree 15 crowns, wherein. 
Sir, if I have more than perhaps you will at the first like, yet 
it is the best cheap that we could get it, and better cheap than 
other noble men in France have bought of the same man, 
having paid for six trees 120 crowns. . . . Well I think this 
good may ensue by your buying it, that if the tree prosper 
. . . you will not think your money lost. If it do not prosper, 
it shall take away your desire of losing any more money in 
like sort. My Lord Ambassador and Mr, Caroo were the 
choosers of it." He then gives directions for the " ordering " 
of the trees, which were to stand out in some sheltered place 
during the summer, and be lifted into the house for the cold 
months from September until April. If the tubs were filled 
up with earth, the plants could remain in them " this two or 
three year, so heed be taken that the hoops fall not aM^ay and 
that the earth shed not." The lemon " hath been twice grafted, 
and is of four years' growth, and this year he would look for 
some fruit." How these particular trees flourished history 
does not relate, but one of the older parts of Burghley House 




ORANGE COURT AT BURGHLEY HOUSE. 

From a picture in the possession of the Marquess of Exeter 



To face page 138. 



n 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 139 

is the " Orange Court," a long room with many large windows 
where the trees were sheltered for the winter. 

This is one of the first instances of their importation, but 
orange and lemon trees were great rarities in this country, 
until many years later. Lord Carew, referred to in these 
letters, is said to have had the first trees. On Sunday, 
August 19th, 1604, James I, gave a banquet at Whitehall to 
the Constable of Castile. " The first thing the King did was 
to send the Constable a melon and half a dozen of oranges on 
a very green branch, telling him that they were the fruit of 
Spain transplanted to England, . , ." " The Ambassador then 
divided the melon with their Majesties."^ 

James I. made an attempt to promote mulberry-culture, with 
a view to establishing a silk industry. He imported the trees 
from France. They had been introduced from Italy into 
Provence about a hundred years previously, and during the 
reign of Henri IV, (1589-1610) into the Orleans district. King 
James in November, i6og, sent a circular-letter to the Lords- 
Lieutenant of all the counties of England, ordering them to 
make public the announcement that in the March following 
a thousand mulberry-trees would be delivered at each county 
town, and all who were able were persuaded and required to 
buy them, at the rate of three farthings the plant, or six 
shillings the hundred. He also had a treatise on the cultivation 
of mulberries published. The King set the example by having 
four acres planted with mulberry-trees, near the palace of 
Westminster, The large sum of ^£935 was the cost of walling 
in the area, and levelling the ground and planting the trees. ^ 
Among the MSS. at Hatfield there is the draft dated 1606 of 
a patent for the importation of mulberry-trees : the Patentee 
was to bring in " only the white mulberry and such as shall 
be plants of themselves, and not slips of others, and of one 
year's growth." Each year he was to bring at least a million, 
which he should cause to be planted and preserved, and he 
was not to take above a penny for each plant. Cecil, in 
furtherance of the King's scheme, himself brought five hundred 

^ Translation of a Spanish MS. in the British Museum, printed in 
England as Seen by Foreigners, by Brenchley Rye. 
^ Issue Rolls, James I., by Devon. 



140 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

trees from France in 1608, but it is not known where they were 
planted. In the Exchequer Rolls of 1608, it appears that 
;^ioo was paid for trees and plants for silkworms, and in 1618 
*' £50 to the keeper of the gardens at Theobalds for making 
a place for the King's silkworms and providing mulberry 
leaves." The solitary mulberry-treefs, so often to be seen in 
gardens in many parts of England, were probably planted 
when this effort was made to bring them into notice. But 
a few trees, still in existence, are even older. Coles, writing 
in 1657, says : " The biggest tree that ever I saw groweth in 
New College in Oxon in a place between the great quadrangle 
and the garden."^ The four trees in the West garden at Hatfield 
were, according to tradition, planted by Queen Eliazbeth ; 
one in the garden at Syon House was planted when the place 
was still a monastery, and at Ribston, in Yorkshire, there is a 
fine old tree which dates from the time when it was in the hands 
of the Templars, or of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, 
who succeeded them. Shakespeare twice refers to the fruit : 

" Volumnia . . . thy stout heart 
Now humble as the ripest mulberry 
That will not hold the handling." 

Coriolamis, Act III., Scene 2. 

He could not with one masterly touch of the pen have described 
this peculiarity of the fruit had it not been familiar to him. 

The custom of strewing rushes (various species of Juncus) on 
the floor was very general in the Middle Ages. Frequent 
notes of payment for rushes occur in the royal accounts, such 
as in loth of Henry III., 1226, " i2d, for hay and rushes for 
the Baron's chamber," and in the Household Rolls of Sir John 
Howard, 1464, item " paid to gromes off chamber for reshis 
i6d." Queen Mary's presence-chamber was strewn with 
rushes, also that of Elizabeth, though she added thereto the 
luxury of a Turkey carpet. In Princess Elizabeth's accounts, 
1551-52, a small sum was entered " to the steward for rushes." 
The guest chambers were always freshly strewn : 

" So here a chamber . . . 

* * * * 

I shall warande fare strewed 
It should not else to you be showed."^ 

^ Adam in Eden, by William Coles, 1657. * Towneley Mysteries. 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 141 

In the Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio, just after his marriage, 
sends his servant to Grumio to prepare the house for his bride. 
Grumio arrives late, and in haste calls, " Where's the cook ? 
Is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs 
swept ?" Such had been for long years the custom, but in 
Henry VIII. 's reign an improvement on the plain rushes 
became the fashion, and sweet-smelling herbs and flowers were 
added. By Elizabeth's time this practice was much in vogue. 
As early as 15 16 " flowers and rushes " were purchased " for 
chambers," for Henry VIII. In 1552, in Princess Elizabeth's 
accounts, there are numerous entries of payments to a certain 
Thomas Briesly, for " flowers and herbs by him provided for the 
same purpose." The sum of £10 was paid in 1565 and 1567, to 
Robert Jones, for providing boughs and flowers for the Council 
Chamber.-^ Queen Elizabeth was so fond of having a constant 
supply of flowers for strewing that a waiting-woman was 
appointed with a fixed salary to have flowers always in readi- 
ness. So late as 1713 this office had not been abolished, as 
there is a letter extant in the State Archives, addressed to 
Alice Blizard, who held the post of " herbe strewer to Her 
Majesty the Queen." Parkinson, writing about what flowers 
are suitable for laying out knots, says of both Germander and 
Hyssop, " they must be kept in some form and proportion 
with cutting, and the cuttings are much used as a strawing 
herb for houses, being pretty and sweet." 

The houses must have been made very fragrant with many 
herbs and flowers, not only strewn on the floor, but placed in 
vases about the rooms. In the Loseley Accounts in 1556 the 
item occurs, " a blewe potte for flowers id."^ Parkinson says 
of both Yew and Box, they are used " to deck up houses in the 
winter-time." Not only in pots and vases were flowers to be 
found, but many were skilfully arranged into little posies, and 
worn as personal ornaments. Violets made into garlands, 
posies, and nosegays " are delightful to look on and pleasant 
to smell, "^ " Auriculas do seem every one of them to be a 
nosegay alone of itself . . . they are not unfurnished with a 
pretty sweet scent, which dothe adde an increase of pleasure 

^ Acts of the Privy Council, new series, vol. vii., 1893. 
^ ArchcBologia, vol. xxxvi. ^ Gerard. 



142 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

in those that make them ornaments for their wearing."^ 
Another original button-hole was the Fritillaria, which, says 
Parkinson, was " worn abroad " by the " curious lovers of 
these delights." 

Some flowers had particular meaning attached to them, and 
were therefore worn on special occasions — a practice which has 
not altogether died out. One interesting survival of such old 
customs is the sprig of Thyme carried by the Order of Odd- 
fellows (Manchester Unity) at the funeral of one of their 
brothers, and cast into the grave. In olden days Rosemary 
was borne at funerals : 

" There's rosemary, that's for remembrance," 

said Ophelia, and strange to say, it was also worn at marriages. 
Anne of Cleves, when she arrived at Greenwich as a bride, wore 
" on her head a coronet of gold and precious stones, set full of 
branches of rosemary." At a rustic wedding witnessed by 
Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth, " each wight had a branch 
of green broom tied on his left arm (for that side is near the 
heart) because rosemary was scant there." 

" Down with the rosemary and bays, 
Down with the mistletoe ; — 
Instead of Holly, now upraise 
^ The greener box, for show. 

* * * * 

Wlien yew is out and birch comes in. 

And many flowers beside 
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin 

To honour Whitsuntide, 
Green rushes then, and sweetest bents^ 

With cooler open boughs. 
Come in for comely ornaments 
To re-adorn the house." 

Herrick, Candlemas Eve. 

Parkinson again refers to the flowers in houses when writing 
about wallflowers. " The sweetness of the flowers," he says, 
" causeth them to be generally used in nosegays and to deck 
up houses." The " greater flag " was also used for the same 
purpose. Plants were grown in rooms also, and Piatt gives a 
long paragraph with suggestions of the best plants to grow, 
^ Parkinson. ^ A sort of grass {Agrosiis}. 



KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 143 

and tells how to water them, and give them air and light. 
Window boxes, too, were used : ' In every window you may 
make square frames either of lead or of boards well pitched 
within ; fill them with some rich earth, and plant such flowers 
or hearbs therein as you like best." For the more shady 
parts of a room he advises rosemary, sweet-briar, bay, or ger- 
mander. And " in summer-time," he continues, " your 
chimney may be trimed with a fine bank of mosse, ... or with 
orpin, or the white flower called ' everlasting.' And at either 
end one of your flower or Rosemary pots. . . . You may also 
hang in the roof and about the sides of the room small pompions 
or cowcumbers pricked full of barley. . . . You may also 
plant vines without the walls, which being let in at some 
quarrels, may run about the sides of your windows, and all 
over the sealing of your rooms. So may you do with Apricot 
trees, or other plum trees, spreading them against the sides of 
your windows." 

This great delight in growing flowers for domestic decora- 
tion was a marked feature in English life at this period. A 
Dutch traveller, Levimus Leminius, a physician and a native 
of Zierikzee, visited England in 1560. He was charmed with 
English comfort, and thus writes :^ " Their chambers and 
parlours strawed over with sweete herbes refreshed mee ; — 
their nosegays finely intermingled with sundry sorts of frag- 
graunte floures, in their bed chambers and privi rooms with 
comfortable smell cheered me up and entirely delyghted all 
my senses." 

^ Translation by Thomas Newton, published in The Touchstone of 
Complexions, 1581, reprinted in England as Seen by Foreigners, Brench- 
ley Rye. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE 

" Bring hether the Pinke and purple Cullambine 
With gelHflowers, 
Bring Coronations, and Sops in wine, 

Worne of Paramoures ; 
Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies 
And cowslips and Kingcups and loved Lillies, 
The pretty Pawnee 
And the Chevisaunce 
Shall match with the fay re flowre Delice." 

Spenser. 

WHILE Henry VIII. was reigning in England, great im- 
provements were being made on the Continent in the 
science of Botany. The Botanic Garden at Padua was founded 
in 1545, and was quickly followed by one at Pisa. But it was 
nearly a century later before England could boast of one. The 
rest of Europe was in advance also in Botanical literature. 
The Aggregator Pr adieus di Simplieihus was probably printed by 
Schoeffer between 1475-80. The [H]Ortus Sanitatis was printed 
in 1485, and was the basis of all the botanical works that 
immediately followed it. It was also the foundation of the 
English Crete Herball. This book was printed by Peter 
Treveris, and several editions of it appeared. The first of 
these is said to have been printed in 1516, but the existence of 
a copy of this issue seems somewhat doubtful, the earliest 
edition, of which many copies are extant, being that of 1526. 
A translation of Macer's Herbal was printed about 1530, but 
it was William Turner who produced the first really English 
Herbal. Herbal literature has perhaps more in common with 
botanical researches than gardening, but by studying the early 
Herbals much knowledge can be gained from the sidelights 

144 



ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE 14^ 

they throw on garden history. Turner especially deserves a 
place in this history, as he did a great work, not only for botany, 
but for gardening. He had a garden of his own at Kew, and 
mentions some of the gardens of the day in his works. He 
was born at Morpeth, in Northumberland, between 1510-15. 
He studied in Cambridge, where he was the friend of Latimer 
and Ridley. Turner was a Reformer, and twice his books were 
prohibited and condemned to destruction. He travelled in 
Italy, Germany, and Holland, and received the degree of 
Doctor of Medicine in Italy. On his return to England, he 
held several Church preferments. He was Dean of Wells, but 
he was deprived of his Deanery, and exiled in Mary's reign, 
though he was reinstated, for a time, on the accession of 
Elizabeth, and he died on July 7th, 1568. His Lihellus de 
Re Herbaria was printed in 1538, and dedicated to the King. 
The Names of Herbes, in 1548, was dedicated to his patron, 
the Protector Somerset, from whose house at Syon the preface 
is dated. Syon had been granted to Somerset on the sup- 
pression of the Bridgittines in 1539. Throughout the work 
there are frequent references to the garden there. Turner's 
Herbal was printed in 155 1, and the " seconde parte " of the 
Herbal in 1562. 

Thomas Tusser, the author of a well-known work on hus- 
bandry, is an attractive personality, good, practical, and simple- 
minded. He was born about 1523-25 at Rivenhall, in Essex. 
In his early years he was trained as a singer, and sang in the 
choir at St. Paul's. He was afterwards under Nicholas Udall, 
at Eton, and in 1543 went to Cambridge, and remained there 
until he came to Court as a retainer of Lord Paget. After 
ten years of Court life he retired to a farm in Cattiwade, in 
the parish of Brantham, Suffolk, on the borders of Essex. It 
was there that he composed his poem. One Hundred Pointes 
of Good Husbandrie, which appeared in 1557. He soon after 
left that farm, and was moving about for some years, going to 
Ipswich, West Dereham in Norfolk, Norwich, Fairstead in 
Essex, London, and Cambridge, and died in London in 1580. 
During these years he greatly enlarged his book, and in 1573 it 
reappeared complete as Five Hundred Pointes of Good Hus- 
bandrie. In this poem he gives useful hints for the cultivation 

10 



146 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

of a garden, as he touches on gardening among the " pointes 
of husbandrie " for each month. The other " pointes " include 
all departments of farming, besides advice about housekeeping, 
how to keep Christmas, and how to treat wife, children, 
servants, and friends ; and his counsel on this last point should 
hold good at the present day, though few would wish to follow 
all his injunctions on husbandry : 

" Good friend and good neighbour that fellowlie gest 
With hartilie welcome, should have of the best." 

William Bulleyn, a learned physician, wrote a book entitled 
The Government of Healthe (1558). Although devoted to the 
herbs used in medicine, some curious information on gardening 
can be gleaned from it. 

The history of the Herbals of this period is rather involved, 
as they were so much copied one from another, and the same 
plates were used in several works. The authors of every country 
borrowed freely from ancient writers, especially Dioscorides 
and Columella. The former was translated into Italian, and 
published with many additions in 1544 by Mattioli, the learned 
Italian botanist and physician. Dodoens, another of the great 
botanists of the sixteenth century, who copied much from 
Dioscorides, was born at Mechlin in 15 17. He published at 
Antwerp in 1554 ^ History of Plants, written in Dutch, which 
was translated into French by Clusius (Charles de I'Excluse), 
and printed at Antwerp in 1557. Henry Lyte translated the 
work into English from the French of Clusius, and Lyte's 
version was printed at Antwerp in 1578, the same woodcuts 
being used for the work in all the three languages. Each of 
these books went through several editions. Meanwhile Dodoens 
greatly enlarged his original, and embodied it in a new work, 
Stirpium HisioricB, Pemptades sex, in thirty books. This great 
Herbal was translated into English by Dr. Priest, who died 
before he could publish his translation. 

Gerard's Herbal (1597) is founded entirely on that of Do- 
doens, parts of it being exact translations. Gerard professes 
to have " perused divers Herbals set foorth in other languages," 
but does not own to having copied so largely as he did. In 
the second edition of Gerard's Herbal, corrected and enlarged 




:?:-_&. 



l'obel. 

From an engraving in the Tyssen Library, Hackney. 



To face page 146. 



ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE 147 

by Johnson in 1633, in the Preface to the Reader this fact 
is pointed out, and, moreover, Johnson maintains that the 
translation made by Dr. Priest, which Gerard states to have 
perished, really came into Gerard's hands, and was largely 
used by him, Gerard himself not being sufficiently proficient 
in his knowledge of Latin. " I cannot," wrote Johnson, 
" commend my author for endeavouring to hide this thing 
from us." L'Obel and Garret both helped to amend some 
mistakes in the Latin in the Herbal, while it was going through 
the press. L'Obel himself was the author of a work on plants 
— Stirpium Adversaria (1570). In this he was assisted by Peter 
Pena, whose acquaintance he had made while studying at 
Montpelier. Mathias de Lobel, or I'Obel, was bom at Lille in 
1538, and travelled about Europe, and practised medicine both 
in Antwerp and Delft before he came to England. For many 
years he took charge of the garden belonging to Lord Zouche 
in Hackney, and was made " Botanist to the King " (James I.). 
The familiar " Lobelia " was so named in his honour by Plumier. 
The first rudiments of a scientific classification are to be found 
in his works, which are therefore considered superior to those 
of Dodoens, who never attempted anything of the kind. He 
had studied Mattioli, and frequently refers to him ; but his 
work, although esteemed by the learned, being in Latin, and 
never translated, could not become popular, as did the work 
of his contemporary, Gerard, which was written in English. 
GeTdj6.'s'Herhal has always maintained a conspicuous position 
in the literature of flowers, and the second issue, so ably edited 
by Thomas Johnson, tended greatly to increase the popularity 
and the value of the work. 

John Gerard, or Gerarde, was born in 1545 at Nantwich, in 
Cheshire, and died in 1607. He was not only a physician, and 
learned " in simples," but also a practical gardener, and culti- 
vated a physic-garden of his own at Holborn, then a suburb of 
London, where he lived. The first work he published was a 
catalogue of the plants in his garden,^ which contained nearly 

^ There is a unique copy of this work in the British Museum, which 
has been reprinted and edited by D. Jackson. It was printed again in 
1598, and is occasionally found bound up with the edition of his Herbal 
of the same year. 

10 — 2 



148 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

eleven hundred kinds, both native and foreign. For twenty 
years he superintended the gardens of Lord Burghley, and dedi- 
cated his great work to this patron. Although the Herbal can- 
not lay claim to originality, yet Gerard, translator and adapter 
as he was, has left an indelible mark of individuality on his work. 
His notes on the localities of flowers are specially characteristic, 
as also the way in which he mentions his friends from whom 
he received presents of plants, or information about them. 
Instances such as the following occur on almost every page : 
" Ciprepedium Ladies' Slipper. I have a plant thereof in my 
garden which I received from Mr. Garret, Apothecary, my 
very good friend." " The golden Mothwort or Cudweed 
(Helichrysum) . . . being gathered before they be ripe or 
withered remaine beautiful long time after, as my selfe did 
see in the hands of Mr. Wade one of the Clerks of her Maiesties 
Counsell which were sent him . . . from Padua." " The 
finger Hart's tongue ... I found in the garden of Master 
Cranwick dwelling at Much-dunmow, in Essex, who gave me 
a plant for my garden." The friends, such as these, who 
assisted Gerard are very numerous, and of most of them 
nothing further is known than the few words in which Gerard 
introduces them, such as " a Learned Merchant of London, 
Mr. James Cole, a louer of plants and very skillful in the 
knowledge of them." " Mr. Garth, a worshipfull gentleman, 
and one that greatly dilighteth in strange plants, who very 
louingly imparted to me " a Solomon's seal received from 
Clusius. The names of some people, however, occur so fre- 
quently that more particulars about them can be gathered. 
Thomas Hesketh is constantly referred to as collecting certain 
plants, chiefly in Lancashire and the North of England, and 
sending specimens to Gerard to grow in his garden. Thomas 
Edwards, of Exeter, was also a botanist, and collector of 
English wild-flowers. Master Nicholas Lete, Merchant, of 
London, not only himself searched for flowers, both in England 
and France, but was so " greatly in loue with rare and faire 
floures and plants ... he doth carefuUy send into Syria hauing 
a servant there at Aleppo, and in many other countries, for 
the which, my selfe and likewise the whole land are much bound 
unto him." One of the plants he brought to this country 



ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE 149 

was a cabbage " with crincly leaves," of a " blewish green." 
Gerard mentions also his procuring a yellow gillyflower from 
Poland, showing the extensive range of his collectors. Gerard 
also had a collector, William Marshall, whom he " sent into 
the Mediterranean," and who brought him from thence the 
seeds of the plane-tree, and plants of the prickly pear, or 
" Prickly Indian Fig-tree." 

James Garret is known from other sources also to have been a 
skilful gardener, and especially clever at growing tulips. He was 
a " learned apothecary of London," and a good Latin scholar, 
and was generous in imparting knowledge and giving plants to 
both Gerard and Clusius. It would be tedious to go through the 
list of all those referred to by Gerard, as they are very numerous, 
and the muster-roll of these helpful friends could be greatly added 
to by looking into the 1633 edition, where Johnson's acquaint- 
ances are as prominent as those of Gerard. It is refreshing to 
see the way in which these old herbalists wrote to each other, and 
helped one another. Johnson, even more than Gerard, worked 
in harmony with other botanists and physicians, and they went 
expeditions together in search of rare flowers. Johnson wrote 
some Latin tracts descriptive of these tours he made with 
friends in the South and West of England, and constantly in 
the Herbal references to his rambles with other collectors 
occur. In writing of a kind of grass he says : "I never 
found this but once, and that was in the companie of 
Mr. Thomas Smith and Mr. James Clarke, Apothecaries of 
London, when riding into Windsore Forest upon search of rare 
plants." 

Thomas Johnson was born at Selby, in Yorkshire, but was 
himself an apothecary of London, and had a shop on Snow Hill. 
Here it was that the banana was first exhibited in England, 
Gerard having only seen a pickled specimen sent from Aleppo. 
Johnson received the bunch of fruit from Dr. Argent, who had 
obtained it from Bermuda, and hung it up in his shop until it 
ripened. He says : " Some have judged it the forbidden fruit ; 
other-some the grapes brought to Moses out of the Holy Land." 
He was the most eminent botanist of the time, and obtained 
some distinction as a soldier. He joined the army to fight for 
the Royalist cause, and died from wounds received at Basing in 



150 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1644. The most important of Johnson's friends and assistants 
was John Goodyer. He noticed for the first time many native 
plants, and his knowledge of botany must have been very 
considerable from the way in which he is referred to by both 
Johnson and Parkinson. Thomas Glynn and George Bowles 
were two other collectors whose names should not be altogether 
forgotten. 

Ralph Tuggy is another name not often remembered, and 
yet, from frequent references to him, he must greatly have 
helped the progress of gardening. Johnson mentions Tuggy 
as if he was almost as well known as Parkinson or the Tra- 
descants, and his garden at Westminster contained many 
plants then very rare. He was especially famous for his pinks 
and carnations, and auriculas, and it appears that his widow 
kept up his garden after his death, which occurred before 1633. 
Johnson described some eight hundred more plants than 
Gerard, and added many woodcuts. The total number in the 
completed Herbal was 2,717, and the number of pages in this 
ponderous folio reached over 1,600. 

Between the first appearance of Gerard's Herbal and the 
second edition, Parkinson had published his Paradisi in Sole 
Paradisus Terrestris, the most popular gardening work of this 
period. Although the medicinal properties are given a place in 
it, as in all early books on plants, it is quite distinct in character 
from these other Herbals. The title of the book is a play upon 
his name, Park-in-Sun's Earthly Paradise, and the quaintness, 
freshness, and originality of the title is characteristic of the 
whole book. Parkinson has the power of inspiring his readers 
with a love of flowers and a feeling for their beauty, and still, 
after a lapse of centuries, no gardener could fail to be refreshed 
and stimulated in his art by a perusal of the Earthly Paradise} 
Parkinson was born in 1567, and, like all the botanists already 
mentioned, was an apothecary. He lived in London, and was 
possessed of an excellent garden, and that he had also travelled 
appears from his works. He was " apothecary to King James," 
and was made " Botanicus Regius Primarius " by Charles I. 
He dedicated his Paradise to Queen Henrietta Maria. The 

^ The feelings that the book might inspire in children is very prettily 
shown in Mary's Meadow, by Juliana Horatia Ewing. 





a .a 

as ^ 



i^ 



ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE 151 

exact date of his death is uncertain, but it occurred soon after 
the pubhcation of his work, entitled Theatrum Botanicum, in 
1640. This book has more to do with botany than with 
gardening, and although he describes even more plants than 
are to be found in Gerard, there is no special improvement in 
classification, the arrangement being chiefly according to their 
medical qualities. In the dedication of this Herbal to Charles I. 
Parkinson calls it his " Man-like Worke," and says the Para- 
disus had been his " Feminine " one, and therefore presented 
to the Queen. The French botanists, Jean and Gaspard 
Bauhin, had brought out their works since the publication of 
Gerard's Herbal, and Parkinson made use of these, as well as 
of those of L'Obel. The blocks for Parkinson's illustrations 
were cut in England.^ Those for Gerard and Johnson came 
from abroad, as did also the greater part of Turner's. 

The busiest workers and collectors of foreign plants in the 
time of James I. and Charles I. were the three generations of 
John Tradescants. The grandfather, a Dutchman, came to 
England probably early in the reign of James I. The next John, 
" the father," was gardener to the first Lord Salisbury, the 
Lord Treasurer ; to Lord Wolton ; to the Duke of Buckingham, 
and in 1629 was made gardener to Charles I. They all 
travelled about Europe, the father in Barbary also, and the 
grandson made a voyage to Virginia. They collected curiosities 
during their travels, and formed a museum, called " Tra- 
descant's Ark," a catalogue of which was published in 1656, 
Museum Tradescanteanum. When the last Tradescant died in 
1662, he left the museum to Mr. Ashmole, who bequeathed 
it to the University of Oxford. Besides the museum, at their 
house in Lambeth they had a good garden, where they culti- 
vated many of the plants they imported. This was visited 
by the King and Queen, and was the resort of the learned of 
all classes. The remains of this garden existed in 1749, at 
which date Sir William Watson wrote a paper describing it 
for the Royal Society.^ He noticed two very large arbutus- 
trees, which had not suffered from the severe cold of 1729 and 

^ For a history of these woodcuts, see Pulteney's Sketches of the 
Progress of Botany, 1790, chap, xii. 
^ Phil. Trans., vol. xlvi., p. 160. 



152 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1740, when " most of their kind were killed." " In the 
orchard " there was " a tree of Rhamnus Catharticus " (Buck- 
thorn) " twenty feet high, and near a foot in diameter." Wat- 
son also mentions a deciduous cypress, " Cupressus americanus 
acacia foliis deciduis " {Taxodium distichum), a tree which the 
Tradescants introduced. The tulip-tree was also one of their 
importations. Evelyn thus refers to it : " Poplar of Virginia — I 
conceive it was first brought over by John Tradescant, under the 
name of tulip-tree (from the likeness of its flowers), but is not, 
that I find, taken much notice of in any of our Herbals. I wish 
we had more of them, but they are difficult to elevate at first, "^ 
Some other plants brought over by them have more fortunately 
preserved their memory. Tradescant's Daffodil, called " the 
great rose daffodil " in Parkinson, is Plenissimus, still described 
as " the largest and richest yellow of all double daffodils."^ 
Tradescant's Aster still bears their name, and the Tradescantias, 
or Spiderworts, are a well-known genus. During his travels, 
Tradescant made purchases for his patron, the first Earl of 
Salisbury, and some of his original bills are preserved at 
Hatfield. Many of the items are of interest, showing not only 
the prices paid for known plants, but also for some new ones, 
which he was the first to introduce. 

The following are extracts from this interesting series :^ 

" 3 January, 1611 — John Tradescant his bill for Routes, flowers, 
seedes, trees and plants by him bought for my Lo : in Holland — Bought 
at Leyden in Holland — For roots of flowers of Roasses and shrubs of 
Strang and rare, £2. — . . . Also bought at Harlem in Holland of Cornellis 
Helin of the Rathe ripe cherry trees 32 at 4s. the peece, £6. 8s. — for 
flowers called anemones, 5s. — for 16 Province Roses, 8s. — for two 
mulbery trees 6s. — for the great red currants 6 plants is. — for two 
arbor vita trees is. — forty e frittelarias at 3 pence the peece los. 
5 January 161 1 — bought at Brussells and in Holland . . . for the rathe 
ripe portingall quince on[e] tree, 6s. — for the lion's quince tree 3s. — for 
two great medlar trees of Naples 5s. — for tulipes roots at Harlem at 

^ One of the oldest tulip-trees is at Waltham, in Essex. " The largest 
and biggest that ever was seen, there being but one other in Great 
Britain, and that at Lord Peterborough's " {History of Waltham, 
Farmer, 1735). 

^ Barr's English Daffodil Catalogiie, 1893. 

^ From the original MS. in the possession of the Marquess of Salisbury, 
at Hatfield. 



ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE i53 

ten shillings the hundred 800, ^4. — for on dussin of great blacke curants 
IS. — on excedyng great cherye called the boores cherye 12s. — on 
Aprycoke tree called the whit aprycoke 6s. — also bought of the arche- 
dukes gardener called peere vyens 10 sorts 20s. — on chery tree called 
the Archedukes cherye 12s. — Also bought of Mr. John Jokkat for the 
double Echatega the martygon pompone blanche, the martygon pom- 
pong orang collar an the Irys calsedonye and the Irys susyana ^t.. 
5 January 161 1 — bought in France — Bought at Parrys. on pomgranat 
tree vithe many other small trees at the root 6s. — on bundell of genista 
hispayca 2s. — 8 pots of orrang trees of on years growthe grafted at los. 
the pece /4. — ollyander trees 6 at halfe a crowne the pece 15s. Myrtil 
trees 7 at halfe a crowne the peece 17s. 6d. — two fyg trees in an other 
baskit called the whit fygs vithe many other rare shrubs give me by 
Master Robyns 4s. — Also of vynes called muscat two bundals of plants 
4s. — Cheryes called Biggandres at 2s. the peece 24, ^2. — Sypris trees at 
on shilling the peece 200, ^10. — ^blak mulberry trees at 2s. the peece 
17, l\ 14s. — peache the troye 4 trees at 2s. the pece, 8s. (also alberges, 
malecotton peaches same price) on pot of the dubble whit stok gilli- 
fiower and on pot of the other gilliflowers, 3s. 

The total sums on these bills amount to ;£iio 8s. Qd. for 
plants, and a few shillings for baskets, with padlocks and 
hampers to pack them in, the travelling-expenses being extra. 
There is also a note on the first bill of £38 from Sir Walter 
Cope, evidently for trees bought for him at the same time as 
Lord Salisbury's. " Master Robyns," referred to by Tra- 
descant, was Jean Robin, a famous French botanist (1550-1629), 
and first curator of the " Jardin des Plantes." He is frequently 
mentioned by Gerard as " Robinius of Paris." The genus 
" Robinia " is named after him. 

The tombstone of the Tradescant family is still to be seen 
in Lambeth churchyard, on the north-east of the chancel, 
erected in 1662 by the widow of the younger John. The 
quaint epitaph runs as follows : 

" Know, stranger, ere thou pass, beneath this stone 
Lye John Tradescant, grandsire, father, son. 
The last died in his spring ; — the other two 
Liv'd till they had travell'd Art and Nature through : 
As by their choice collections may appear 
Of what is rare, in land, in sea, in air. 
Whilst they (as Homer's Illiad in a nut) 
A world of wonders in one closet shut. 
These famous Antiquarians that had been 
Both gardeners to the Rose and Lily Queen 



154 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Transplanted now themselves, sleep here, and when 
Angels shall with their trumpets waken men 
And fire shall purge the world, these hence shall rise, 
And change this garden for a Paradise." 

Sir Hugh Piatt was supposed to be the most learned man 
of his time in soils and manures. He published a work on 
that subject in 1594, and also The Jewel-House of Art and 
Nature. His work on gardening, which deserves most attention, 
was printed first in 1600 under the title of The Paradise of 
Flora, and again, with the addition of a second part, in 1660, 
with the title The Garden of Eden. This last edition appeared 
some time after Piatt's death, and was edited " by a kins- 
man " of his, Charles Bellingham. " That learned and great 
observer," Sir Hugh Piatt, " knight, of Lincoln's Inne, gentle- 
man," had a garden of his own in London, and an estate near 
St. Albans, and it also appears, from references in his works, 
that he passed some time at Copt Hall, in Essex, which be- 
longed to Sir Thomas Henneage. He was intimate with all 
the chief gardeners of his day, and is most conscientious in 
giving the credit of any piece of information to the friend from 
whom he learnt it. Thus he frequently refers by name or 
initial to Mr. Andrew Hill, Mr. Tavener, Mr. Pointer, of 
Twickenham ; Garret, the apothecary ; Pigot, the gardener ; 
Mr. Nicholson Gardiner, and others, all evidently well known 
to his readers as authorities on the subject. He recommends 
various manures for different plants, and for the general im- 
provement of the soil. Fern spread over the earth during the 
winter, and then dug in — " Ashes of ferns are excellent," and 
" soot enriches the ground "; also " shavings of horn." " Onions 
and bay salt sown together have prospered exceeding weU." 
He is careful to specify the best kind of manure for every plant. 
On the reverse of the title-page of The Jewel-House of Art and 
Nature he gives a picture of an exceptionally large ear of 
barley " grown at Bishop's Hill, Middlesex, in 1594, the ground 
being manured with sope ashes." 

Another plant-lover of this date who deserves to be remem- 
bered is Dr. Penny. Not much is known of his life. He was 
a physician, and travelled abroad, and also about England, and 
collected many plants. He was a friend of the most eminent 



ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE 155 

botanists of the day — Clusius, Gesner, Turner, Lobel, Gerard, 
etc. He must have been well known at the time by the way 
in which he is referred to by these writers, although his name 
is now remembered by few. Gerard speaks of him as " Thomas 
Pennie, of London, Doctor of Physic, of famous memorie and 
a second Dioscorides for his singular knowledge of Plants, . . . 
lately deceased . . . whose death myself and many others do 
greatly bewail." Johnson refers to him in the same way : " Of 
famous memorie, a good physician and skilfull Herbalist." He 
was the introducer of several plants, and was the first to find 
some of our native species. Clusius named Hypericum haleari- 
cum " Pennaei " after him, as he brought it first from Majorca. 
Geranium tuberosum was also called after him. This plant 
was brought to England by Turner, who " bestowed it on 
Dr. Penny," from whom Clusius received it. 

Other writers on gardening of about this time have been 
quoted already, but little is known of their lives beyond what 
can be gathered from their works. William Lawson, who treats 
of orchards and fruit-trees, was a North-countryman, and wrote 
from his own experience. Thomas Hill, or Didymus Mountain, 
as he sometimes styled himself, published several works, which 
he did not profess to have composed, but " gathered out of the 
best-approved writers of gardening, Husbandrie and Physic."^ 
The names even of some have not been handed down, such as 
N. F., the author of a good treatise on fruit in 1608 and 1609, 
who cannot be identilied. The initials do not correspond to 
any of the many names quoted by other writers, unless 
Fowle, mentioned by Gerard as the " skilful keeper " of 
Queen Elizabeth's garden at St. James, and famous for the 
musk-melons he grew there, had a Christian name beginning 
with N. 

^ Gardener's Labyrinth, 1594. 



CHAPTER IX 

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

" . . . . Retired leisure 
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure." 
; Milton. 

" That is the walk, and this the arbour ; . v. 

That is the garden, this the grove." 

George Herbert. 

THE period now to be surveyed falls naturally into three 
divisions. The first, the reign of Charles L ; the second, 
the Commonwealth ; the third, the Restoration. The develop- 
ment of gardening in each of these has its own distinctive 
character. The current of slow progress in horticulture runs 
on smoothly, but garden design does not alter much until the 
third portion of the time. During the Commonwealth, there 
was a movement towards the improvement of orchards and 
market gardens, and the reign of Charles H. witnessed a great 
revival in gardening in all its branches. The early part is 
merely a continuation of the gardening in the time of James I. ; 
the men whose works have already been quoted were still alive 
— Parkinson, Johnson, and the Tradescants — and they form 
a link with the Elizabethan age. Sir William Temple and 
John Evelyn, whose names are so intimately connected with 
the garden history of the Restoration, in like manner connect 
that period with the brilliant days of gardening at the close 
of the seventeenth century. 

Each succeeding generation of gardeners had a very poor 
opinion of the capabilities of their predecessors, while they 
thought the excellence of their own gardens could hardly be 
surpassed. Holinshed maintained that there never were such 

156 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 157 

gardens as those of Elizabeth's reign, but by the middle of 
the seventeenth century gardening was so much advanced 
that the early years of Elizabeth were looked back upon as 
a time of almost primitive horticulture. After a large allow- 
ance is made for probkble exaggeration, the fact remains that 
the progress was sufficiently marked to be felt by the writers 
of the time. Rea, writing in 1665 " to the Reader " of his 
Flora Ceres and Pomona, says his reason for publishing his work 
was that, after " seriously considering Mr. Parkinson's garden 
of pleasant flowers, and comparing my own collections with 
what I there found, (I) easily perceived his book to want the 
addition of many noble things of newer choicing, and that a 
multitude of those there set out were by time grown stale, and 
for unworthiness turned out of every good garden." Rea is 
writing about the pleasure garden, but a correspondent of 
Hartlib's, most likely Dymock, ten years earlier, writes in the 
same strain of nursery gardening. 

Hartlib, a Pole by birth, settled in England earlyin Charles I.'s 
reign. He received a pension from Cromwell of ;^ioo a year, 
and did much to help the progress of agriculture. His Legacy 
of Husbandry is a collection of letters on Agriculture addressed 
to him probably by Cressy Dymock, Robert Child, Gabriel 
Plats, and others. They are in favour of increasing the number 
of nursery gardens and orchards, and argue chiefly on the ground 
that gardening would pay well if properly managed. " Gar- 
dening though it be a wonderful! improver of lands as it plainly 
appears by this, that they give extraordinary rates for land 
. . . from 40 shillings per acre to 9 pound and dig and howe, 
and dung their lands which costeth very much . . . yet I know 
divers which by two or three acres of land maintain themselves 
and family and imploy other about their ground ; and therefore 
their ground must yield a wonderful increase or else it could not 
pay charges ; — yet I suppose there are many deficiencies in 
this calling, because it is but of a few years standing in England, 
and therefore not deeply rooted nor well understood. About 
fifty years ago, about which time ingenuities first began to 
flourish in England, this art of gardening began to creep into 
England into Sandwich and Surrey, Fulham, and other places." 
He goes on to say that old men in Surrey remembered " the 



158 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

first gardeners " to plant cabbages, " coleflowers," and to sow 
turnips and carrots : " they paid 8 pound per acre, yet the 
gentleman was not content, fearing they would spoile his ground 
because they did use and dig it. . . . Many parts of England 
are wholly ignorant . . . where the name of gardening and 
ho wing is scarcely known. . . . Gardening- ware (unless about 
London) is not plentiful or cheap. . . . We have not nurseries 
sufficient in this land of Apples, Pears, Cherries, Vines, Chest- 
nuts, Almonds, etc. : but gentlemen are necessitated to send 
to London some hundred miles for them." Further on, how- 
ever, he says that " there are many gallant orchards " in Kent, 
about London, in Gloucestershire, Hereford, and Worcester, 
and these are known to have existed a long time previous to the 
fifty years he ascribes to them. In Kent and Surrey, he adds, 
plums usually " pay no small part of the rent." 

It was not the Puritan party only who were occupied in 
the improvements of orchards. One of the great Royalist 
families took a prominent part in the work. To this day, at 
Holme Lacy, in Herefordshire, is to be seen the same long green 
walk flanked with yew hedges, down which Charles I. may 
have passed when he stayed with Lord Scudamore, the year 
which is marked in history by his loss of the Battle of Naseby. 
After the death of the King he had served so faithfully, Scuda- 
more went with the expedition to the relief of the French 
Huguenots at Rochelle, and, on his return to Holme Lacy, 
occupied himself with planting and grafting apple-trees. He 
introduced the Red Streak Pippin, from which the choicest 
sort of cider was made. Ambrose Philips {1671-1749) com- 
memorates this fact in his poem Pomona. He praises the 
Musk apple, and adds : 

" Yet let her to the Red-streak yield, that once 
Was of the sylvan kind, uncivilized, 
Of no regard, 'till Scudamore's skilful hand 
Improv'd her, and by courtly discipline 
Taught her the savage nature to forget — 
Hence called the Scudamorean plant, whose wine 
Whoever tastes, let him with grateful heart 
Respect that ancient loyal house." 

The orchard at Holme Lacy still remains, and the garden 
now possesses one of the finest walks of " cordon " fruit in 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 159 

the country. Walter Blith, author of The English Improver, 
or a New Survey of Husbandry, 1649, was another " Lover of 
Ingenuity," as he styled himself, and he also impressed upon 
his countrymen the advantages of planting orchards, and 
urged those in other parts of England to copy what was done 
in the West of England, and to plant " the Vine, the Plumb, 
the Cherry, Pear, and Apple" ; he advises also " the more 
planting of cabbage, carrot, onion, parsnip, artichoak, and 
Tumep." 

These led the way, and other Agriculturists followed this 
good example, and tried by their writings to give a stimulus to 
the industry of market-gardening. Ralph Austen, in 1653, 
wrote a Treatise on Fruit Trees, and dedicated it to Hartlib. 
The first part of his work, full of arguments in favour of garden- 
ing and fruit culture, based on scriptural authority, and inter- 
spersed with texts, is typical of the puritanical style of the 
times. In another of his works, The Spiritual Use of an 
Orchard or Garden of Fruit Trees, this is carried to such excess 
that there is but little information about gardening, although 
every process, grafting, transplanting, and so on, is compared 
to some stage in a Christian's life. This puritanical spirit is 
also apparent in the title of Adam (or Adolphus) Speed's book, 
in 1659, Adam out of Eden, and the rest of the title-page is 
indicative of the practical side of these writers. It runs thus : 
" Shewing Among very many other things, An Approvement 
of Ground by Rabbles ( = rabbits) from £2,00 annual Rent to 
£2,000 yearly profit all charges deducted." But how this feat 
was to be accomplished it is needless to go into ! 

During the Commonwealth, gardening was treated from a 
more practical point of view ; what would pay best to cultivate 
was considered, and how the soil could be most improved 
and made more fruitful. Not many gardens were laid out, and 
many of the existing ones suffered during the wars, especially 
the Royal Gardens. Nonsuch and Wimbledon were sold, and a 
survey m.ade of Hampton Court, with a view to selling it, in 
1653, but the order was" stayed until Parliament " took "further 
notice," and it was left untouched. The absence of large 
new gardens is more marked when compared with the numbers 
which appear to have been laid out after the Restoration. 



i6o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

The progress, during the middle part of this period, was 
in the culture of economic plants, and not in garden design, 
or in the flower-garden. Many of the old superstitions about 
plants were exposed. Austen fills several pages in contradict- 
ing old-fashioned notions — " Errors discovered," he calls it — 
such things as writing an inscription on a peach-stone or almond, 
and planting it, expecting the same writing to appear in the 
ripe fruit of the tree ; or : " To have all stone fruit taste as yee 
shall think good, lay the stones to soak in such liquor as yee 
would have them taste of "; or again : " To have red apples, put 
the grafts into Pikes' blood." He thus sums up such-like 
recipes : " These things cannot be." " Errors in practice " 
he seeks to correct also, and shows much good sense in his 
remarks on planting or moving fruit-trees : " Many remove 
their trees in Winter or neere the Spring, whereas they ought 
to remove them in September or thereabouts." Another error 
was " planting trees too neere together ; I account lo or 12 
yards a competant distance for Apple-trees or Pear-trees, for 
Cherry or Plum 7 or 8." Many plant " too old trees in orchards, 
and neglect to plant their trees in as good or better soyle, then 
that from which they are removed." He points out some of 
the writings in which such errors were to be found. " The 
Countryman's Recreation, 1640, is full of these fancies," also 
in the works of " Didymus " or Thomas Hill, and the Country 
Farm, by Gabriel Plat. The necessity of refuting such errors 
shows how primitive many gardeners still must have been in 
their ideas. A small work on fruit-trees by Francis Drope in 
1672 is free from absurdities ; but Adam Speed's book, a few 
years later than Austen's, is full of errors as apparently ludicrous 
as those " discovered " by Austen, so gradual is the passage 
" from darkness to dawn." Only two of his solemn assertions 
need be quoted as specimens : " To make white lilies become 
red, fill a hole in a lily rodl; with any red colour," and " the 
roots of roses set among broom will bring forth yellow Roses." 
He suggests that sow thistles should be planted, as " they 
will maintain " " calves, lambs, pigs . . . and millions of rabbits," 
and Jerusalem artichokes, because they would " feed poultry 
and swine." Some of his remarks, however, are more sensible ; 
for instance, he observes of potatoes, " they will make very 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY i6i 

good bread, cakes, paste, and pyes . . . increase of themselves 
in a very plentiful manner, with very little labour ; they will 
likewise grow and thrive very well, being cut in slices, and so 
put into the earth." 

Vegetable pies and tarts seem not to have been unusual. 
Markham, in The English Housewife, 1637, gives several recipes, 
one for " spinage tart " flavoured with cinnamon, rose-water 
and sugar ; another of spinach, sorell, parsley, and eggs. He 
gives also long lists of varieties of salads, " Cookery sallats," 
such as " boyled carrets," radishes or skirrets ; " simple 
sallats, onions, lettuce, samphire, Beanecods, sparagus or cu- 
cumbers," served with oil, vinegar, and sugar ; and " com- 
pound sallats," which " are usuall at great feasts and upon 
Princes' tables ;" these consist of, " first the young Buds and 
knots of herbs," such as " Red sage, mints, lettice, violets, mari- 
golds, spinage " . . . also" cabbage done with cucumber, currants, 
orange, lemons, olives, figs, and almonds." Carrots were used 
for adorning dishes, cut into " scutchions, arms, birds, or 
beasts." Lamb and mutton should be garnished, he says, with 
prunes or currants, and fish with barberries. ■"• 

From among the multitudinous varieties of fruits, of which 
some examples have been given in a former chapter, Austen, 
who was the greatest authority on fruit-trees in his day,^ makes 
a selection of the best. He commends, among apples, the 
summer and winter Pearmain, the small pippin, the Harvey, 
the Queene, and the Gilloflour. Out of the four to five hundred 
sorts of pears, he selects the " Winsor " and " Sommer Berga- 
mot." " But for a constant bearing kind 1 know none better 
than the Catherine peare " ; " Greenefield excellent . . . will 
last indifferent well, a great bearer " ; " Choke peare, accounted 
a speciall kind, for Perry, although the peare to eat is stark 
naught." " Flanders cherries, most generally planted here in 
England. The Black Hart cherry is a very special fruit." 
" The best nectarine is the Roman red. But it is very hard to 

^ The price paid for one pound of barberries in 161S was 3s. (Le 
Strange, Household Accounts). 

^ A good treatise on fruit in MS., in the possession of Miss Willmott, 
probably written by Joshua Chandler about 165 1, is entirely founded on 
Austen, and parts of it are transcribed from Austen's work, with the 
omission of his references to Scripture. 

II 



i62 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

be propagated, as for grafting none take that way, and but few 
with inoculating, which I conceive is the reason it is dearest 
of all plants with us." " The nutmeg dnd the Newington the 
best peaches ; very large and gallant fruit." " I know of but 
one kind of Figs that come to ripeness with us : the great 
Blew-fig, as large as a Catherine Pear. The trees grow in 
divers gardens in Oxford, set against a south wall, and be 
spread up with nayles and Leathers." Parkinson agreed with 
Austen that this " blew-figge earely ripe," of a " dark purple 
blackish colour, with an eye of blew as it were cast over them, 
and blackish red throughout," was the best, and says that even 
against a wall the fruit would not ripen until August, " and 
then will be so mellow and soft and moist that they will fall 
about their fingers that handle them." He describes also three 
other kinds, the " wilde Figge," with small, hard fruit, which 
never came to any good; " the Ordinary Figge," of which he 
had seen trees" great almost and as much spread as an apple- 
tree," which bore fruit " white and of a reasonable bignesse " ; 
and a dwarf blue fig, which was planted in boxes and moved 
" in stoves for the winter-time, and set abroad in summer like 
our Orenge trees. "-^ v 

The ruthless hand of man has done more to destroy the old 
gardens of England than the changes of time and seasons. 
But some vestiges of the gardens of each period still remain. 
Although no " princely " gardens were being laid out during the 
middle of the seventeenth century, like those of its latter end, 
many an old manor-house garden may date from about this 
time. This is not a history of " Gardens," so it is impossible 
to give anything like a complete list of the beautiful old gardens 
that are still to be found throughout the length and breadth 
of England. I must content myself by mentioning a few 
typical examples, to serve as illustrations of the fashions and 
plans of each successive century.^ The garden of Chilham 
Castle, in Kent, with its terraces, bowling-green, and clipped 

^ Theatyum Botaniciim, 1640. 

^ Since these lines were first penned fifteen years ago, several publica- 
tions, particularly CoMw;(y;v Life (begun in 1897), have come into exist- 
ence. By reference to these periodicals, or works such as Gardens Old 
and New, collected from them, it is now an easy matter to pick out 
countless examples of each type of garden. 




GARDEN GATES, BULWICK. 
Erected in 16/4. 



To face page 162. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 163 

trees, was laid out in 1631. That of Bilton, in Warwickshire, 
with its fine holly and yew hedges, was begun in 1623. The 
row of huge cut yews at Hutton John, in Cumberland, were 
probably planted when the house was restored in 1662. 
Bulwick, in Northamptonshire, with terraced slopes, pond, 
and fine wrought-iron gates, was being laid out at the same 
time, and finished in 1674. And at Mitford, in Northumber- 
land, although the Manor House (dated 1637) itself is in ruins, 
the old wall of the garden still encloses a tangle of roses, sweet 
herbs, and old apple-trees, and a sundial, which for 250 years 
has faithfully marked the hours as they fly. Instances such 
as these could be found in every county in England. House- 
hold accounts give a few glimpses into the management of 
such gardens. In the interesting series at Hunstanton of the 
Le Strange household books such items as the following occur : 

" 1628 Nov. 6, for a Bagg to Bring the fruit home in is. To a man for 
digging of flaggs for the Bowling ground 4s. For 65 foote of Oake Bord 
for the gardin doores 7s. 

" 1629 Paid for dikinging and Hedging of Heacham orcliyard, 2 men 
for 7 dayes a peice 7d. in clearing the garden and digging of it iis. 8d. 

" 1630, 6 wheel Barrowes £\, for a crest for the gardin house end at 
2S. 8d. ;^i. i8s., and for crest for the moate wall i6d. ;^i2. 2s. 5d. and for 
the gardin entry doorstall 3od. and for crest over that door. 

" Oct. 16, 1 63 1 for a gardin spade 3s. 

" 1632 To the gardiner for a quarter's wages wanting 2 weekes £z. 

" 1635 For 2 greate gardin basketts 4s. 

" 1637 Pumpes and Pipes for the garden ;^2. 4s. To a gardener of 
Creake for slips and seeds, 2s." 

What greatly adds to the interest of the Accounts of Hun- 
stanton is that the part of the garden there referred to within 
the moat has been but little altered since that date. The 
bowling-green is still there, and a square plot of garden with 
thick low hedges, in front of the house, is hardly changed. 
The note-book of Henry Oxenden, of Barham, Kent, between 
the years 1638 and 1668,^ contains many interesting gardening 
entries : 

" Feb. II, 1635, set the hawksbill pares in the garden in Maydeken. 
" 1635 planted the cherry garden at great Maydeken. 
" Feb. 14, 1652 gave Mr. Barling 4 apple trees and a peare tree, viz. a 
musk pare tree. 

^ The Genealogist, July and October, 1891, January, 1892. 

II — 2 



i64 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

" Feb. lo, 1652 sent my Coz Henry Oxinden the yew tree . . . lent him 
then my stone rowle. 

" Nov. 16, 1647 planted twentie-five peare trees in the garden that is 
walled about at Great Maydeken witness my sonne Thomas and my 
Sonne Hobart. 

" Nov. 1654 tooke up out of the Nursery at Maydeken i quince tree, 2 
warden trees and 3 other peare trees, and set y"" in Byton, and i pear 
tree against the bake house windore, I allso sate one medlar tree and a 
nutmeg peach tree in the garden. 

" Fb. 19, 1655 grafted one of the best pares Capt. Meriwether hath 
uppon a tree beside the house at South Barham ; made a crosse upon it : 
it is to be eaten in Feb. 

" 1639, hee (Sir Basil Dexivell at Boome) planted his orchard agt. his 
back dore agt, the Hall. 

" Feb. 7, 1647 Lieutenant Hobday planted 10 apple trees, in his 
orchard next his garden, which I gave him. 

" 1665 Ms. Adie, Relict of Ed. Ady, new coped the wall round about 
the gardens and the Greene Court." 

The note-book of Sir Thomas Hanmer/ about this date 
contains some memoranda of the fruit-trees in his garden at 
Bettisfield : 

" Against the South wall are one Apricocke from Mr. Rea,^ three 
Apricockcs from London, one peache from a French stone, raised at 
Bettisfield 1660, and two red-heart cherries from Trevallyn. In the 
corner next to the turf walk one pear from Bowen, I think a bergamot. 
Against the West wall there, from the south wall to the door, all plums 
from Colonel Jeffreyes, except one double-flowered cherry, and one 
morocco plum next the door ; on the other side the door, first a bullen 
plum, then a Turkey plum, then a king plum, then a Catalonia plum, 
and a Duke cherry, a cornelian. Against the North Wall these plums 
from Trevallyn, viz., the Apricocke plum and the orange, and one plum 
from Colonel Jeffreyes. Against the East Wall in the great garden, may 
cherries, a carnation cherry, about the middle of the wall, a duke cherry 
at the end, close by the North Wall, a cornelian cherry from Rea 
marbled, and a turkey plum from Rea ... In the little court . . . are 
three peaches from Mr. Bate, viz. a Morills . . . aNewington . . . then a 
Persian peach. . . . Against the East Wall of the little garden, beginning 
from the South Wall, first three peaches raised 1660 at Bettisfield, from 
French stones, then a peach de Pau, then a Savoy peach." 

These little details cannot fail to be of interest. They show 
how a man, an ardent Cavalier, who had lived through such 
stirring scenes, turned his attention to his garden to pass 

^ A Memorial of the Parish and Family of Hanmer in Flintshire, by 
John, Lord Hanmer, privately printed, 1877. 
^ Author of Flora, Ceres, and Pomona. 




SUNDIAL, EUSTON, WITH THE ARLINGTON 
ARMS, AROUT 167I 




GARDEN AND MOAT, HUNSTANTON. 
Laid out about 1630. 



To face page 164. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 165 

away the years of inaction and waiting until the Restoration. 
He took up gardening not only as a pastime, but really gave 
his brains to it, as well as his time, and made himself a thorough 
master of the art, as further notes from his pen show. Another 
Royalist who has always been recognized as one of the greatest 
patrons of gardening was Lord Capel, son of the Lord Capel 
who was beheaded in 1648. He was created Earl of Essex 
in 1661, and died in the Tower in 1683. He made the garden 
at Cassiobury, which is frequently referred to as one of the 
most beautiful gardens of the seventeenth century. His 
brother. Sir Henry Capel, was also a gardener, and introduced 
" several sorts of fruits from France."^ He had a garden at 
Kew; in it were " curious greens " ; it was " as well kept as any 
about London," and his " flowers and fruits " were " of the 
best."^ Sir Henry was created Baron Capel of Tewkesbury 
in 1692, hence there is apt to be some confusion in the various 
allusions to Lord Capel, as both were gardeners. The Earl of 
Essex seems to have confided the chief care of his gardens to 
Cooke, a celebrated gardener and author of a work on fruit- 
trees, though, as Evelyn remarks,^ " no man has been more 
industrious than this noble Lord in planting about his seate 
adorn' d with walkes, ponds, and other rural elegancies. . . . 
The gardens at Cassiobury are very rare, and cannot be other- 
wise, having so skilful an artist to govern them as Mr. Cooke, 
who is, as to the mechanical part, not ignorant in mathe- 
matics, and pretends to astrology." Sir Henry does not 
appear to have had such assistance : "his garden has the 
choicest fruit of any plantation in England, as he is the most 
industrious and understanding in it.""* 

Another distinguished Royalist and gardener was John 
Evelyn. His great work on Forest trees does not really come 
within the scope of this work. It was written for the Royal 
Society (of which Evelyn was one of the first Fellows) with the 
idea of giving practical assistance in the planting of trees in 
parks, woods, and forests, and went far beyond the narrow limits 
of a garden. But gardens are incidentally referred to, as the 

^ Switzer, Ichnographia Rustica, 1718. 
^ Gibson, Gardens about London, 1691. 
^ Evelyn's Diary. * Ibid. 



l66 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

following extracts show. He urges the hardiness of cedars, 
and regrets they are not more grown. Perhaps it was at his 
suggestion that some were planted in the Chelsea physic garden 
in 1683. The ilex, also, he proves to be hardy by the remains 
of one in the Privy Garden, Whitehall, " where once flourished 
a goodly tree of more than four score years." " Phillyrea is 
sufficiently hardy, which makes me wonder to find angustifolia 
planted in cases and so charily set into the stoves among the 
oranges and lemons." He had " four large round " Phillyreas, 
" smooth-clipped," in his own garden at Says Court, Deptford.^ 
Under Hornbeam, he notices the " admirable " hedges at 
" Hampton Court and New Park," " the delicious villa of the 
noble Earl of Rochester." " These hedges are tonsile, but 
where they are maintained to 15 or 20 feet high . . . they 
are to be kept in order with a scythe of 4 foot long, and very 
little falcated, that is, fixed in a long sneed or straight handle, 
and does wonderfully expedite the trimming." . , , These 
hedges are great "convenience for the protection of our orange- 
trees, myrtles, and other rare perennials and exotics." The 
laurel was so commonly used for the same purpose that 
Evelyn says " it seems as if it had only been destined for 
hedges." Holly for a garden-hedge he also enthusiastically 
praises : " Is there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing 
object of the kind than an impregnable hedge of about 480 feet 
length, 9 feet high, and 5 feet in diameter, which I can show 
in my now ruined gardens at Says Court (thanks to the Czar 
of Muscovy) any time of year, glittering with its armed and 
varnished leaves." This is quoted from the later edition of the 
Silva, and the " ruin " of the garden refers to the damage 
done there by Peter the Great, who lived at Sayes Court to be 
near Deptford during his visit to England (1698). He is said 
to have amused himself by being wheeled about the garden 
in a wheel-barrow, over borders and through hedges, regardless 
of consequences. In his Diary, on June 8th, 1698, Evelyn writes : 
" I went to Deptford to see how miserably the Czar had left 
my house after three months making it his Court. I got 
Sr. Christr. Wren, the K.'s surveyor, and Mr. London, his 
gardener, to go and estimate the repairs, for which they allowed 
^ Gibson, Gardens about London, 1691. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 167 

£150 in their report to the Lords of the Treasury." The 
famous holly hedge has long since disappeared, but traces of 
the old walks are still observable in the public garden main- 
tained on the site by a descendent of the great diarist. 

Besides the interest he took in his own garden, Evelyn 
helped to lay out others. The family seat of the Evelyns, 
Wotton, in Surrey, he says, was one of " the most magnificent 
that England afforded, and which, indeed, gave one of the 
finest examples to that elegancy since so much in vogue." 
He, however, helped his brother to carry out various altera- 
tions in 1652. With much deference to so distinguished a 
gardener as Evelyn, at this distance of time one may be allowed 
to doubt if all his alterations were improvements. There 
was a " mount," or " mountaine," and a moat within ten yards 
of the house. This was taken away by " digging down the 
mountaine and flinging it into a rapid streame . . . filling up 
the moat, and levelling that noble area where now the garden 
and fountain is." In 1658 he went " to Alburie (Albury, near 
Guildford) to see how that garden proceeded, which I found 
exactly don to the designe and plot I had made, with the 
crypta thro' the mountain in the park 30 perches in length, 
such a Pausilippe is no where in England besides. The Canall 
was now digging and the vineyard planted." This curious 
cutting through the hill still exists, besides other traces of the 
old work, and a very fine yew hedge and long grassy terraces. 
Again, he shows himself to be the advocate of a holly hedge, 
in the following extract from his Diary : " 25 Sept. 1672, 1 din'd 
at Lord John Berkeleys ... it was in his new house or rather 
palace. . . . For the rest, the fore court is noble, so are the 
stables, and above all the gardens, which are incomparable 
by reason of the inequality of the ground, and a pretty piscina. 
The holly hedges on the terrace I advised the planting of." 
Berkeley House, which was burnt to the ground, stood on the 
site of what is now Hay Hill, Berkeley Square, and Lansdowne 
House. 

Evelyn himself tried to procure new seeds and plants from 
abroad, and also to make those trees he advocated in his Silva 
more plentiful; for many of them, such as the Plane and Horse- 
chestnut, were still uncommon in this country, and others, the 



i68 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Larch, Tulip-tree and Cedar among the number, were scarcely 
obtainable. The following letter written by him to Samuel 
Pepys, in 1686, shows the active interest he took in the work.^ 

Letter from John Evelyn to Samuel Pepys, dated from Says 
Court, September i, 1686, addressed — 

For Mr. Secretary Pepys, &c., 

At the Admiralty in 

Yorke buildings. 
Sr, 

When I had last the honor to see & to dine w* you, 
there was a Captaine (multorum mores hominum qui vidit et 
urbes) who going to command some forces in New-England, 
was so generous, as to offer me his assistance, in procuring 
for me, anything which I thought curious, & rare among the 
plants of those Countries. The Ingenuity, & extraordinary 
Industie of the Gent : by what I both learn' d from the 
Character you gave of him, & what I my self e could observe 
in so short a time ; together with your interest in him ; makes 
me not willing to omitt so favourable an opportunitie, of 
putting this Note into his hands, thro yours : and that if it 
may comply with his diversion, when he is in the Countrie, 
to collect any of these (or other) natural productions of the 
Vegetable Kingdome : You (who first were pleas' d, to recomend 
me to him) will give him leave they may be sent, & consigned 
under your auspicious name, to 

S' 

Yrs 

most humble, & 
S • Court continualy Obligd Servant 

2^: Sep':— 86 J. EVELYN. 

Plants of New England & Virginia known by these names : 

N : Engl : 

1 . The White Cedar . . . . , . The Seedes onely 

2. Cedar of N : England . . . . . . Seedes 

3. Larch- tree . . . . . . . . Seedes & plants 

4. Lime-tree . . . . . . . . Seedes & plants 

^ MS. in the possession of Lady Amherst, of Hackney. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 



169 



5- 


Hemlock-tree 


. . Seedes & plants 


6. 


Poplar or Tulip tree 


. . Seedes & plants 


7- 


Filbert Tree 


. . Nutts & plants 


8. 


Firrs of all kinds . . 


Seedes 


9- 


Pines of all kinds 


. . Nutts 


10. 


Wall Nutts of all kinds 


. . Nutts 


II. 


Plums of all sorts 


Stones & plant 


12. 


Sarsaparilla 


. . Plants 


13- 


The Scarlet Nut : w^'' some call Wallnut Nutts & plants 


Virginia 


L : 




14. 


Benjamin Tree . . 


. . Seeds & plants 


15- 


Gumme Tree 


. . Seede & plants 


16. 


Sugargras Tree . . 


. . Seedes & plants 


17- 


Date plum : 


. . Stones & plants 


18. 


Pappaw-tree 


. . Seedes & plants 


19. 


Chinquapine 


. . Nutts & plants 


20. 


Piekhickeries 


Nutts & plants 


21. 


Sumac trees, 3 kinds 


. . Plants 


22. 


Cedar of Virginia 


Seedes 


23- 


Maple tree bearing keys of crimson col' Seedes & plants 


24. 


Peacock taile tree 


Seedes & plants 


25- 


Oakes, six kinds . . 


Acorns & plants 



The seedes are best preserv'd in papers : their names written 
on them and put in a box. The Nutts in Barills of dry sand : 
each kind wrap"" in papers written on. 

The trees in Barills their rootes wraped about mosse : The 
smaller the plants and trees are, the better ; or they will do well 
packed up in matts ; but the Barill is best, & a small vessell 
will containe enough of all kinds labells of paper tyed to euery 
sort with y" name : 

I suppose most of those sen'd to be plants of Virginia May 
grow also in N — England : 

S', y' greate civilitie, & generous offer, makes me presume 
(thro Mr. Secretary Pepys's cover & recomendation) to burden 
you with this catalogue from 



Saye Court neer Deptford, 
I Sep^ — 86. 



Y' most humble 

Sev' J. Evelyn. 



Memd"" a Copie hereof was putt into y 
hand of Cap' Nicholson. 

Sep", a''— 86. 



170 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

In 1664 Evelyn published his Kalendarium Hortense, or 
Gardener's Almanac, a most popular work, which went through 
a number of editions, and appeared with the last corrected 
edition of the Silva, in 1705, and Evelyn died at the end of 
the same year. The flowers to be planted and the business 
to be done in each month is carefully gone through. He 
gives also a list of the comparative tenderness of flowers, 
and divides them into three classes, those " least patient of 
cold," " to be first set into the conservatory or otherwise 
defended," those " enduring second degree of cold," and 
accordingly " to be secured in the conservatory ;" Class III. 
" not perishing but in excessive colds to be last set in or 
protected under matrasses or slighter coverings." His classi- 
fications of some of the plants are rather singular. The first 
begins well with Acacia ^gyptiaca { = A. vera), Aloe American 
{ = Agave americana), then Amaranthus tricolor, but the list 
contains also Styrax Colutea, or bladder senna, and white 
lilac, which are hardy, while oranges, lemons, oleanders, and 
" Spanish jasmine " (/. odoratissimum) are in the second class 
with the " Suza Iris " (7. susiana), " summer purple cyclamen" 
(C. europcBum), and " Digitalis Hispan " (lutea). The last 
list classes together pomegranates and pine-apples with Eryn- 
gium planum and winter aconite. 

In Rea's Flora, Ceres, and Pomona, the approximate size 
of a garden is given. The dimensions are much more modest 
than Bacon's " princely garden," eighty square yards for fruit 
and thirty square yards for flower-garden for a nobleman ; 
for a " private gentleman 40 square yards fruit and 20 flower 
is enough ; a wall all round of brick 9 feet high, and a 5 feet 
wall to divide the fruit and flower gardens, or else pales painted 
a brick colour. The large square beds to be railed with wooden 
rails painted, or box-trees or pallisades for dwarf trees." Most 
of the designs he gives are squares, with T or L shaped beds, 
fitting into the angles and along the walls of the garden, these 
borders to be about three yards wide. In the comers of each 
bed were to be planted " the best crown Imperials, lilies, 
Martagons, and such tall flowers, in the middle of the square 
beds great tufts of pionies, and round about them several sorts 
of cyclamen, the rest (of the beds) with Daffodils, Hyacinths, 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 171 

and such like. Thestreight beds are fit for the best Tulips, where 
account may be kept of them. Ranunculus and Anemonies 
also require particular beds — the rest may be set all over with 
the more ordinary sorts of Tulips, Frittilarias, bulbed Iris, and 
all other kinds of good roots. ... It will be requisite to have 
in the middle of one side of the flower garden a handsom 
octangular somer-house roofed everyway and finely painted 
with Landskips and other conceits furnished with seats about 
and a table in the middle which serveth not only for delight and 
entertainment, but for many other necessary purposes as to 
put the roots of Tulips and other flowers in, as they are taken 
up upon papers, with the names upon them untill they be 
dried, that they may be wrapped up and put in boxes. You 
must yearly make your hot bed for raising of choice annuals, 
for the raising of new varieties of divers kinds. These gardens 
will not be maintained and kept well furnished without a 
Nurcery, as well of stocks for fruits as of flowers and seedlings 
where many pretty conclusions may be practised." 

Rea's description shows what great attention was paid to the 
culture of bulbs, especially tulips, in the average small garden. 
" Tulip fever " was at its height, and although it never reached 
such a climax in England as it did in Holland, the flowers were 
justly popular. Fifty years after the first tulip was seen in 
Augsburg (1559) the flower was well known and largely culti- 
vated throughout Germany, Holland, and England. About 
seven distinct varieties were grown, and endless variations pro- 
pagated from them, and the rage for procuring fresh colours 
became a passion among gardeners. Rea's son-in-law, 
Samuel Gilbert, in his Florist's Vade-Mecum,^ gives a plan of a 
garden for tulips. The beds are divided into squares, and 
numbered up to fifty, and each division was intended for a 
distinct variety of tulip. 

A present of tulips was much valued, or an exchange was 
effected among friends, and each new variety carefully trea- 
sured. The following notes occur in a pocket-book of Sir 
Thomas Hanmer: "Tulips sent to Sir J. Trevor 1654 i Peruchot 
I Admiral Enchuysen i of my Angelicas i Comisetta i Omen 
I of my best Dianas, all very good bearing rootes, sent by my 
^ Second edition, 1683. 



172 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

wife from Haulton." " June 1655 Lord Lambert, I sent him 
by Rose a very great mother-root of Agate Hanmer." This 
was a tuHp grown in his own garden at Bettisfield ; its colours 
were gris de lin, crimson and white. Sir Thomas Hanmer 
has also left notes on their culture. " Set them in the ground 
about the full moon in September about four inches asunder 
and under four inches deep, set the early ones where the sun in 
the spring may come hot on them. Set the later kinds where 
the noon sun may not be too fierce on them. Let the earth 
be mold taken from the fields, or where woodstacks have 
been, and mix it with a fourth part or more of sand. Make 
your beds at least half a yard thick of this mold. Tulips live 
best planted alone, but you may put some anemonies with 
them on the outside the beds if they be raised high and round. 
They will come up in December and January, and the early 
sorts flower in the latter end of March, and beginning of April, 
the other a fortnight or more after them. Set the mother- 
roots by themselves, and the young offsets by themselves. 
The new varieties of tulips come from sowing their seeds, but 
the seedlings will be five years at least before they bear a 
flower. Keep old strong roots for seed, of such kinds as have 
blue cup and purple chives, and are striped with pure white, 
and carnations or gridelines or murreys. The single colours 
with blue cups or bottoms, and purple chives will most of them 
parrach or stipe, and will stand two years unremoved when the 
roots are old." 

A further catalogue of the contents of the flower garden at 
Bettisfield in 1660 is chiefly a list of its tulips. Each bed is 
mentioned, and every row of bulbs taken separately, and the 
name of each bulb, as many as thirteen ranks, all carefully 
arranged. But other flowers also found comers, although not 
allowed beds to themselves. This was another bed at Bettis- 
field. " In the middle of this bed is one Double Crown 
Imperial. In the end are six rows of Iris raised from seed by 
Rea ; also polyanthuses and daffodils. In the four corners 
of this second bed are four roots of good anemonies." In one 
there was a preponderance of Narcissus, all described " Belles 
du Val narcissi, all yellow." ... " Belle Selmane narcissi, 
right dear ones," and so on. " The border under the South 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 173 

Wall in the great garden is full of good anemones, and near the 
musk-rose are two roots of the daffodil of Constantinople from 
Rea, and a Martagon pomponium." These extracts show 
that Thomas Hanmer was a friend of the gardener and author 
Rea. He made a catalogue of choice plants, " yet such as 
will bear our climate," with short " directions for their pre- 
servation and increase, not meddling with their medical 
qualities," and it is believed that these notes were given to 
Rea, who made use of them in his book. 

Sir Thomas was also a friend of Evelyn, and imparted 
some of his knowledge of plants to him. On August 23, 
1668, he writes to Evelyn, enclosing him some papers : " They 
are but common observations, but true ones, and most of 
the famed secrets for ameliorating flowers will not prove so." 
In 1671 he wrote again, this time sending Evelyn some plants : 

" Bettisfield, Augst. 21st, 1671. 

" Sir, I send you herewith some rootes of severall sorts : the 
bear's ears {Auriculas) and some of the anemones and ranun- 
culus are very good, but the tulips (except Agat Hanmer and 
the Ariana, and some others) are not extraordinary ; indeed, 
my garden affords not now such varieties of rare tulips as I had 
formerly ; most of my best died the first yeare I came to live 
at this place, and I have not furnisht my selfe anew, because 
I thinke neither this ayer nor earth agrees with them. I 
suppose your flower garden, being new, is not very large, and 
therefore I send you not many things at this tyme, and I wish 
the beares eares doe not dry too much before you receave them ; 
they will be a fortnight at least before they come to Deptford, 
and therefore sett them as soone as may be, and water them 
well (if it raine not) for three or fower days, and plant them 
not in too hott a sun. I thought once to have ventur'd some 
gilliflowers, having two years since raised some very good ones 
from seed (w" I never did before, nor I thinke never shall 
againe, because the wett in England hinders the ripening of 
the seed more than in Holland and Flanders), but there is 
such store of excellent ones all about London that I had not 
the confidence to adventure any to your view ; — and I doubted 
whether being soe long on the way would not kill them. Sir, 



174 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

I wish I were better able to serve you either in these bagatelles 
or more weighty occasions : I should with great alacrity and 
satisfaction, I assure you, lay hold on all opportunityes to 
express myself e how really I am 

"S^ 
" Yo' affectionate faithfull servant, 

" Tho. Hanmer. 

" My wife and my selfe humbly present o' services to your 
worthy lady, and your selfe, as also to my noble friend S' 
Richard Browne. I convey this letter and the box to you by 
my son Tom Hanmer, who is constantly at his chamber in 
ffig-tree Court in the Inner Temple, and can send your com- 
mands to mee at any tyme. You will find in the box some 
very good bear's ears seed, which you know better to sow 
and order than I can direct." 

Other flowers mentioned as rarities by Gerard and Parkinson 
had become very generally known. Among the lilies this is 
noticeable : " The red lily^ is a flower so vulgar, every country 
woman can form an idea of it in a stranger's head, by their 
rustick descriptions. . . . Next comes martagans, a rambling 
flower onely fit for flower pots or chimneys, and to be planted 
in by borders or under hedges."^ Carnations were still popular 
flowers : " Caryophyllus hortensis called July flowers, and are 
indeed summer glory as Tulips the pride of the spring . . . the 
nobler sorts which are called Dutch July flowers or more 
vulgarly carnations raised from seeds in the Netherlands and 
other parts adjoining to the sea, and thence conveyed to us."^ 

The sensitive plant, " Planta Mimosa, the sensible or humble 
plant," was a new acquisition in Charles the First's time. The 
seeds were " yearly brought out of America."^ This was 
probably one of the tender annuals, for which the hot bed 
would be prepared. Another plant grown in this way was 
Tobacco : " Sow on a hot bed as early as you can after Christ- 
mas," writes Sharrock ; " then plant under South Wall or 
otherwise with hedges or fences of Reed to be defended from 

^ =Lilium canadense rubrum, or L. croceum, or L. pompomium. 
^ Gilbert, Florist's Vade-Mecum. ^ Ibid. * Rea. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 175 

sharp weather." Jacoboea marina {^Sprekelia formosissima) 
came from North America in 1658. Jasmine ( = odoratissimum) 
from Madeira about the same time, and many other plants 
were introduced. 

So much is done to encourage the improvement of flowers 
nowadays, by shows, competitions, and prizes, that it is 
difficult to realize that the efforts made in that direction long 
ago were spontaneous. The earliest record I have noticed of 
encouragement of the growth of flowers (except, of course, 
gratuities for presents of flowers at a much earlier date) is 
mentioned by Pulteney:^ " Mr. Ray informs us that the people 
of Norwich had long excelled in the culture and production of 
fine flowers, and that in those days (c. 1660) the florists held 
their annual feasts, and crowned the best flower with a premium 
as a present." 

The introduction of foreign tender plants led to the gradual 
growth of conservatories and hothouses. In a previous chapter 
some hints Sir Hugh Piatt gave for the protection of delicate 
plants during the winter were noticed. In the second part 
of his work, first printed in 1660, he not only thinks of pro- 
tection, but has also a feeble idea of forcing, an art which did 
not develop until many years later. He writes, " Quaere, 
If pease, beans, pompeons, musk mellons, and other pulse seeds, 
put in small pots . . . and placed in a gentle stove or some 
convenient place aptly warmed by a fire and then sown in 
March or April would they come up sooner ?" Again, he says: 
" Why not utilize a kitchen fire planting them {i.e., apricots 
or vines) near a warm wall, or brewers, diers, soap boilers or 
refiners of sugar, who have continual fire, may easily convey 
the heat of steam of their fires (which are now utterly lost) 
into some private room adjoining wherein to bestow their fruit 
trees." 

Attention was now turned to growing oranges, and the 
houses built for the shelter of these trees are the earliest kind 
of conservatory. Very far removed from the modern glass 
structure, they were like large rooms with big windows and a 
stove or open fire to warm it in the coldest time, or " in default 
of stoves or raised hearths you must attemper the air with pans 

^ Sketches of Botany, 1790. 



176 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

of Charcole."-^ The oranges were planted in cases, and were 
lifted out to adorn the garden during the summer months, 
but were " committed betimes into the conservatory." No 
garden was complete without its " collection of choice greens." 
Already in the time of Charles I. there existed several orangeries. 
At Wimbledon, the favourite resort of Henrietta Maria, was 
one of the finest examples. The orange garden was laid out 
" in four knots," bordered with box, and turfed squares with 
walks round them. In this the oranges stood out in tubs 
in the summer-time, and there was a garden house in the 
orangery, where the trees, forty-two in number, were stored for 
the winter. These trees were valued, when the Parliamentary 
survey was made prior to selling the place, at £420. The survey 
of these grounds forms a very complete picture of a garden of 
this date, the various terraces, trees, walks, summer-houses, and 
everything it contained, being carefully described and valued.^ 
After the Restoration, conservatories became more general, 
and are noticed by several of the writers of the time. Houses 
were built for the reception of " tender greens " at the Oxford 
Botanic Garden, and later on at Chelsea Physic Garden. The 
gardens of Essex House in the Strand possessed a fine collection 
" of choicest greens," under the care of John Rose, one of the 
most celebrated gardeners of that day. His treatment of 
plants in cases is thus quoted by Rea : " In spring and autumn 
you must take some of the earth out of the cases, and open the 
rest with a fork or other fit tool ... fill up again with rank earth 
two parts dung well rotted." That orange-trees, however, 
were still considered a great novelty, the following extract 
from Pe-pys' Diary will show : " 25 June 1666. — Mrs. Pen 
carried us to two gardens at Hackney (which I every day grow 
more and more in love with), Mr. Drake's one, where the garden 
is good, and house and prospect admirable, the other my Lord 
Brooke's, where the gardens are much better, but the house 
not so good nor prospect good at all. But the gardens are 
excellent, and here I first saw oranges grow, some green, some 

^ Rea, Flora, Ceres, and Pomona, 1665 ; also Sharrock. 

^ Printed in ArchcBologia, vol. x., 1789. Reprinted in an Appendix to 
this volume from original MS. in the Record Office, Parliamentary 
Survey, No. 72. 




ORANGERIE AT CHISWICK. 

From ail engraving by Rocqxie, 1736. 




ORANGERIE AND CANAL, EUSTON. 
From a sketch hy Edmond Prideaux c. 1716. In the possession of Charles Glynn Pridcaux Brunc, Esq. 



To face page 176. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 177 

half, some a quarter, and some full ripe, on the same tree, 
and one fruit of the same tree do come a year or two after the 
other ; I pulled off a little one by stealth (the man being 
mightily curious of them) and eat it, and it was just as other 
little green small oranges are — as big as half the end of my 
little linger. Here were also a great variety of other exotique 
plants, and several Labyrinths, and a pretty aviary." He 
visited this garden on a former occasion. May 8th, 1654, and 
says of it : " One of the neatest and most celebrated in England "; 
but either the oranges were not there then, or he did not see 
them. 

Gardeners seem to have understood that a certain amount of 
air was necessary for plant life, but I think they by no means 
realized the power of light. Sharrock, writing on the subject, 
comes to the conclusion that " the coldness and briskness of the 
free air , . . produces verdure," and to prove this, he takes for 
example flowers shut in rooms, the leaves of which become 
paler, and the " whiting the leaves of Artichokes, Endive, 
Mirrhis Cichory, Alexander, and other plants, which is done 
by keeping them warm without the approach or sentiment of 
the cool fresh aire." It is astonishing how they were able to 
keep delicate plants alive by sheltering them in dark places 
during the winter months. " Some defend their Mirtles, 
Pomegranates and such other tender Plants, either by houses 
made of straw like Bee hives, or of boards (with inlets 
for the sun by casements, or without them), Litter of Horse 
Stables being laid in very cold weather about the houses of 
defence." 

English gardeners at this time studied the works of French 
ones, and adopted many of their methods for the care of these 
" tender greens," as well as those in other gardening operations. 
Jean de la Quintinye was the most famous French practical 
gardener at the time that Le Notre was their chief garden 
designer, and it is known that he came to England, and also 
corresponded with the principal Englishmen of rank who 
devoted themselves to horticulture. His works were trans- 
lated by John Evelyn, and later were abridged and reissued 
by London and Wise, and were very largely consulted in 
England. John Rose, who was considered the best practical 

12 



178 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

gardener of the day, and author of a work on vineyards/ 
had been sent by the Earl of Essex to study gardening at 
Versailles, and on his return was appointed Royal Gardener to 
Charles II. 

Although England owed so much to the French horticul- 
turalists at this period, the influence of their garden designers 
was even more marked. A great change came over English 
gardens at the Restoration, and any large new ones were laid 
out, and many old ones were remodelled, in the French style. 
The smaller country-seats and manor-houses stuck to the older 
fashion, not so much from conservatism, but because the new 
French ideas were extremely expensive, and could only be 
adopted where there was an ample area, and a sufficiently well- 
filled purse to carry out the vast projects that the new fashion 
entailed. The plans had to embrace long avenues with broad 
paths adorned with statues, fountains and cascades, walks 
with a background of trellis, alcoves and arches of closely 
clipped trees, together with canals, waterfalls, and woodland 
groves, all executed with the utmost symmetry and formality. 
The prophet of this new school was the famous Le Notre, who, 
with untold sums at his disposal, evolved the wonders of 
Versailles, and created or transformed most of the magnificent 
gardens in France. There has always been a legend that he 
came to England, and time after time it has been asserted 
as a fact that the alterations made by Charles II. in St. James's 
Park, Hampton Court, Greenwich, and Whitehall, were carried 
out under his direction, and also that he laid out the grounds 
of several country-houses. So long has the statement of the 
supposed visit of Le Notre to this country been accepted as 
true, that I feel great caution is necessary in casting any 
doubt on such a time-honoured tradition. In spite of dihgent 
search, however, I have been unable to find any definite proof 
that the visit took place, and have, moreover, come across 
much indirect evidence, which, but for one curious discovery, 
goes far towards proving the contrary. Up to the present time 
no contemporary papers or letters that have come to light 
mention this journey as an accomplished fact, and no payments 
were made to him or incurred on his behalf, as far as can be 
^ Hie English Vineyard Vindicated, 1666. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 179 

ascertained by a careful examination of the accounts of various 
departments in the Record Office.^ 

Switzer, a well-known authority of the next generation, 
writing in 1715, makes no allusion to the coming of Le Notre, 
although he mentions Perrault, one of his pupils,^ and the 
visits of De la Quintinye. Only fifteen years after Le Notre's 
death Switzer did not know his name in connection with any 
English garden, and Cook, the designer of one that was in later 
times attributed to him, was " yet living." Le Notre was a 
very conspicuous figure in his day, and in high favour at 
the French Court, and intimate with most of the noblesse, 
and his career can be followed very closely, owing to the 
wealth of memoirs and letters at this period. There seems 

^ Historical Manuscripts Report. No reference to Le Notre in any 
index of any report issued up to 1909. 

Treasury Books and Papers : Warrant ve horses : October 25, 1662, is 
the only mention of Le Notre. 

Pell's Issue Rolls, Exchequer : "Various payments to the Mollets, 
but nothing about Le Notre. Searched April 18, 1661, to April 18, 
1663. 

Pell's Issue Books, Exchequer (indexed) : Searched from September 
30, 1661, to April 18, 1663. Nothing. 

There is no grant to Le Notre (or Grillet) on the Patent Rolls. 
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Charles II., 1661-1662, 1663- 
1664 : No reference to Le Notre. 

State Papers, France, vol. cxvi. (1662) : Nothing. 
Exchequer (King's Remembrancer) Miscellanea, No. 227, 1557- 
1837 : Abstract of Officers and Appointments (under Offices), No. 228. 
The same (under Names) . No reference to Le Notre in either. 

Thorpe's Exchequer Papers, No. 444 : This could not be searched, as 
the years 1662 -1669 are now missing. 

Docket Books, Signet Office : 1662 -1663. Nothing. 
Declared Accounts, Pipe Office : No reference in any of the fol- 
lowing : 

Roll 3428, September ist, 1661 ; June loth, 1662 : Accounts of 

Sir William Boreman. Works in Greenwich Park. 
Roll 3276, May 31st, 1662 ; June ist, 1663 • Payments for work 

done at Hampton Court, Greenwich, etc. 
Bundle 2434/87, June ist, 1662 ; May 31st, 1663 : Same as the 

preceding. 
Bundle 2477/264, April 30th, 1662; September 29th, 1664: 
Windsor. 
^ The Nobleman's . . . Recreation, 1715 ; also Ichnographia Rustica, 
by Stephen Switzer, 171 8. 

12 — 2 



i8o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

to be no epoch in his life that is unaccounted for, during which 
time he could have been in England.^ No exact year has ever 
been assigned for Le Notre's stay in England, though some have 
thought that the " French Gardeners " who were " supervised " 
in 1661 included him. In various works on London or on gar- 
dening published more than a hundred years later, it is simply 
recorded that Le Notre laid out St. James's Park and the other 
places which are attributed to him, but none of them give 
any contemporary authority for the statement. One writer 
even makes it appear that he paid two visits, one in the reign 
of Charles II., the other while William III. was on the throne. 
There is a colossal MS. Biography in the British Museum 
by Joseph Gulston, who died in 1786, of " Foreigners who 
have visited England,"^ and it gives a short notice of the life 
of Le Notre, in which it states " he was in England in the 
reign of King William. The gardens at Cashiobury, in Hert- 
fordshire, the seat of the Earl of Essex, were planted and laid 
out by Le Notre in the reign of Charles II. . . . He planted 
St. James and Greenwich Park, no great monuments of his 
invention." 

With regard to Cassiobury, it is known that Lord Essex's 
gardener was Rose, who was sent by him to study at Versailles, 
and that he was succeeded by Moses Cook, who is said, 
together with the Earl, to have laid out the grounds.^ That 
he was in England in the time of Wilham III. is most unHkely, 
as appears from MSS. letters which will be quoted, dated 
1698. Le Notre was born in 1613, and died in September, 
1700, and was buried in Paris, and that he should have under- 
taken a fatiguing journey at such an advanced age is most 
improbable. If the visit ever took place, therefore, it was 
in all probabihty in the reign of Charles II. If he was actually 
directing the works in St. James's Park, it must have been early 

^ I am assured this is the case by M. Edouard Andre. He writes : 
" Je suis de plus en plus persuade que le Notre ne se rendit pas en 
Angleterre aucun document n'ayant pu me permettre de fixer I'epoque 
a laquelle ce voyage aurait pu avoir lieu." 

^ MS. Biographical Dictionary of Foreigners who have Resided in 
or Visited England from the Earliest Times down to the Year 1777, by 
Joseph Gulston {oh. 1786). 

^ See p. 165. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY i8i 

in the reign, as the work there was begun in 1660. Pepys, in 
his Diary, makes mention of several visits to see how the " brave 
alterations " progressed, and in October, 1660, he went for a 
" walk in St. James's Park, where we observed several engines 
at work to draw up water, with which sight I was very much 
pleased," The warrant in which the reference to the French 
gardeners occurs, which many writers have concluded to mean 
Le Notre, runs as follows. It is dated December 10, 166 1, 
and is a warrant creating a certain Adrian May " to be super- 
visor of the French gardeners employed at Whitehall, 
St. James's, and Hampton Court, to examine their bills, 
accounts, and see that they have due satisfaction, with a 
salary of £200 a year therefore."^ Le Notre was a man of very 
different standing, and had been ennobled by Louis XIV., 
and would have been entertained and received at Court, and 
not treated like an ordinary gardener. Furthermore, the names 
of some of the French gardeners appear from other warrants, 
dated June and September, 1661. The first is "to pay 
Andrew and Gabriel Mollett ;^240 yearly for wages as the 
King's gardeners, and for them to have lodgings in St. James's 
Park belonging to the gardeners. "^ The same year " Gabriel 
Mollett " had been buying flowers in Paris for the garden 
at St. James's, for which he sent in a bilP for 1,487 French 
livres, or 115 pounds sterling. It appears that he did not 
long enjoy his position as gardener with " Andrew," for there 
is a petition dated at Whitehall, February 27th, 1662-1663, 
of " Charles Mollett to the King for payment of £115 due 
for flowers brought from France by his late brother Gabriel, 
and planted in the Royal Gardens, St. James's Park, with 
a reference thereon to Adrian May, surveyor of the King's 
gardens, and his report that the flowers, being Anemones and 
Ranunculus, were planted without his knowledge, and are only 
worth £14 to ;^i8."^ Mollett had certainly not been paid, as 

^ Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, Charles II., 1661-1662. 

^ Ibid., Domestic, 1661-1662 ; also September 27th, i66i. " Warrent 
to pay Andrew and Gabriel Mollett the yearly sum of ;^240 for wages 
for the Royal Garden, St. James's Park, planting fruit-trees and 
flowers " (vol. xlii., No. 41). 

^ Ibid., 1661-1662, vol. xlvii.. No. 77. 

* Ibid., 1663-1664, vol. Ixviii., No. 115. 



i82 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

another entry testifies/ but Adrian May was certainly justified 
in his astonishment at the amount of the bill, even if they were 
the finest France could produce. Eighty livres for four 
Ranunculus roots, and fifteen for one Anemone, must have 
shocked any careful supervisor of accounts. This is the bill 
in full :2 

Memoire gendral des fleurs que Gabriel Mollet javdiner ordinaire de sa 
Majesty de la grande bretagne a fourny et achepUe a paris, pour 
lornement du grand jardin Royal du parcq Si. fames a Londre, en 
lannde, 1661. 

Premierement. 

Cent trente liures danemosne simple du Leuant lesquelle 

fournisse de fleurs en toute saison de lannee, les cent trente 

liures Reuiennent a deux Cent liures cy . . . . . . 200// 

jtam vn Millier de gros Ranonculle Cramoisy double lesquels 

Reuiennent aussy a deux cent liures cy . . . . . . 200// 

jtam Cinq liures danemosne jncarnadine despagne double qui 

Reuient a dix frans la liure cy . . . . . . 050// 

jtam deux liures danemosne double fleur de pesche tres belles 

lesquelle deux liures Reuient a trente liures . . . . 030// 

jtam vne liure danemosne blanche double de la grande espece 

qui Reuient a vingt cinq liures cy . . . . . . i^ll 

jtam vne liures danemosne violette double fort belle qui 

Reuient aussy a vingt cinq liures cy . . . . . . 025// 

jtam vne liure danemosne Coulonbine double que Reuient a 

quinze liures cy . . . . . , . . . . 015// 

jtam vne demye liure danemosne orlatte ou autrement appellee 

jncarnadine despagne panachee lesquelle Reuiennent a dix 

liures lonce, partant les demye liures qui est huict once Reuient 

a quatre vaingts liures cy . . . . . . . . 80// 

jtam vne liure danem^osne Amarente Regatte qui Reuient a 

vingt liures cy . . . . . . . . . . 020// 

jtam seize Anemosne appellee passe roszee qui est vne fort 

grande fleur les seize Reuiennent a vingt cinq liures cy . . 029// 
jtam douze Anemosne a pluche appellee angelique tres belle 

les douze Reuiennent a vingt cinq liures cy , . , . 025// 

jtam Cinquante quatre grasse plante de Ranonculle piuoine qui 

I'une des plus belle fleurs qui soient en f ranee le tout Reuient 

a quatre vingts liures cy . . . . . . . . 080^/ 

^ State Papers, France, vol. cxvi., p. no : " Je certifie de n'auoyr 
pas paye aucune chose au S"^ Molet pour le court des fleurs qu'il M'a 
montre auoyr achapte pour le Roy de la grande Bretaigne, d'autant que 
je rien auoys ancun ordre de la part de sa Majeste fait a Rouen le 10 
(or 20 ?) de Decembre, 1662. — Guillme Scott." 

^ State Papers, Domestic, Charles II., vol. xlvii., No. 77. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 183 

jtam Cinquante Anemosne Amarente Regatte panachee de 

la grande espece lesquelle Reuiennent a cinquante liures . . 050/^ 

jtam vingt quatre beaux RanoncuUe bosseual panache a vingt 

cinq soldz piece partant le tout ce monte a . . . . 030/^ 

jtam six gros RanoncuUe orenge panache dela grande espece qui 
Reuiennent a six liures piece partant les six ce Monte a trente 
six liures cy . . . . . . . . . . 036// 

jtam quatre grosse plante dun RanoncuUe appelle dalep ou 
Salamine, qui est le plus Rare qui soit a present en trance 
lequel Reuient a vingt liures piece, partant les quatre ce Mcnte 
quatre vingt liures cy . . . . . . . . 080// 

jtam vingt quatre RanoncuUe jaune double dela grande espece 

qui Reuiennent a vingt liures cy . . . . . . 020// 

jtam trois Anemosne a pluche esleuce de cette annee et qui 

sont tres rares en leur espece les trois Reuiennent a . . 050// 

jtam vne tres belle Anemosne a pluche Couleur de rose esleuce 

de cette annee qui Reuient a quinze liures cy . . . . 015// 

jtam deux Anemosne Regatte Rouge double aussy tres belles 

qui Reuiennent a quinze liures cy . . . . . . 015// 

jtam vne fort belle Anemosne a pluche appellee la toscane qui 

Reuient a quinze liures cy . . . . . . . . 015// 

jtam deux Anemosne a pluche appellee lepicaris les deux 

Reuiennent a seize liures cy . . . . . . . . 016II 

jtam deux autres anemosne a pluche appellee albertine qui 

sont tres belles les deux reuiennent a vingt liures cy . . 020// 

jtam deux Anemosne a pluche appellee la felicitee qui faict vne 

fleur fort large les deux reuiennent a vingt liures cy . . 020// 

jtam six tres belles Anemosne a pluche appellee la lucoise 
esleuce cette annee par Monsieur de Ligny lesquelle reuiennent 
a dix liures piece partant les six ce Monte a soixante liures 
cy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . o6cll 

jtam onze tres belles Anemosne appellee la narcisse par ce 
quelle fleurit aussy large q'un gros narcisse double et est dune 
tres belle couleur les onge Reuiennent a soixante liures cy . . 060// 

jtam vne liure de tres belles Anemosne qui sont toute bleus 

qui viennent de Rome la liure Reuient a ^oll cy . . . . 050/^ 

jtam vne douzaine danemosne fiamette Amarente qui est de 
six couleursdifferenteset partant tres belle la douzaine Reuient 
a cinquante liures cy , . . . . . . . 050/^ 

jtam vne demy liures danemosne Rouge double toute forte 

plante lesquelle Reuient a vingt liures cy . . . . 020// 

jtam vne fort belle Anemosne a pluche esleuce cette annee par le 
Sieur Oger fieuriste laquelle est extremement bjizarre en ces 
couleurs elle Reuient a quinze liures cy . . . . . . 015// 

jtam quatre gros RanoncuUe Monstre panache lequel apporte 
vne fleur aussy large et aussy double q'une rose a cent feuille 
les quatre Reuiennent a quarante liures cy . . . . 040// 

jtam vne douzaine danemosne a pluche appallee la RanoncviUe 



i84 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

accause que la fleur a Ressemblance au RanoncuUe et deuient 
fort large la douzaine Reuient a trente liures cy . . . . 030^/ 

jtam vne douzaine de gros ognons de jacinthe double auecque 
vne douzaine de jonq'uille jaune le tout Reuient a vingt liures 
cy . . . , . . , . . . . . 020// 

Somme totalle du presant Memoire ce Monte a quatorze 

cent quatre vingts sept liures cy . . . . 1487^/ 

This present Bill comes to jn english Money one 

hundred and fifteene pound . . . . . . 115;^ 

[Endorsed ;] Molet y^ Gardin^ 

Although Adrian May rightly drew attention to the exorbi- 
tant charges in the above account, he does not seem to have 
always been as particular in settling just claims, for on De- 
cember 16, 1663, there was a petition from " the labourers who 
have worked in the Royal Gardens, under Mr. MoUet, to the 
King for payment of wages. They have worked 31 weeks and 
received nothing."^ 

Andrew Mollett is the one of the family here referred to, 
and he was the most important. He is really Andre Mollet, 
and was the brother of Noel, and son and pupil of Claude 
Mollet, chief gardener both to Henry IV. and Louis XIII., 
who had died about 1613. A work by Claude, entitled 
Theatre des Plans et Jardinages, was published by his 
sons in 1652. The plates in this work are signed by Noel, 
Jacques, and Andre Mollet.^ Andre himself was the author of 
a work entitled Le Jardin de Plaisir, published in Stockholm 
in 1651.^ He gives a portrait of his father on the engraved 
title, and describes himself as " Maitre des Jardins de la reine 
de Suede " (the celebrated and eccentric Queen Christina). 
Later on, after he had been established in St. James's Pari:, 
he published another book with the same title in Enghsh, The 
Garden of Pleasure,'^ containing designs for gardens, and dedi- 

^ Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1663-1664, p. 357. 

^ Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, 1862. There were other editions — 1663 
and 1678. 

^ There is a copy of this book in the British Museum (said by Brunet 
to be rare) . 

* I only know of one copy of this book, which is at Lyme Park, in 
the possession of Lord Newton, and from which the extracts quoted 
here have been made. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 185 

cated it to Charles II . with the customary eulogies of this 
" invincible Monarch," who, " with excellent choice, accom- 
panied with great Solidity of Judgment, begun, and with in- 
cessant care and concernment still prosecutes in his Royal 
Houses of St. James's, Hampton Court, and Greenwich, where 
this Mighty Prince hath made more notable changes, and 
added more Royal Decorations since the 10 years of this 
happy Restoration, then [sic] any His Ancestors ever thought 
in the Space of a whole Age." There is a plate giving a plan 
of the garden in St. James's Park, and he expressly states in 
the preface to the reader that these " designs are all of my own 
invention, and drawn with my own hand." He describes 
minutely his plan, which, it will be noticed, is for a garden, and 
does not embrace the canal, which was 100 feet broad and 
2,800 feet long, and ran through the centre of the park ; but, 
as has been shown, this was in progress before the appointment 
of Mollet. 

" And we shall begin with the Royal Garden, which we have con- 
trived by His Majesties Order in his park at St. James's. This Royal 
Garden **** contains 200 Toises^ in length, and 50 in breadth, and 
whereas there is no place near it from which it may be view'd from 
on high, we have therein omitted all Embroidered Ground works, and 
Knots of Grass, and have contrived it into several Parallelograms, 
according to its length ; and in regard it faJls out, that at one end there 
happens to be a Wild Wood, Ave have contrived another of green trees 
over against it, of which the great Tree which was found standing there 
in the middle makes the Head, both of the green Wood and the rest 
of the Garden, which Tree we thought fit to leave as a remembrance 
of the Royal Oak. The Lists in the said Parallelogram are planted 
with dwarf fruit Trees, Rose Trees, and several sorts of Flowers ; the 
circumference is planted with Cyprus Trees and other green Plants, 
to make Palissados of about five foot high, with two perforated Gates to 
every Square ; the said Lists are parted with Grass in the manner of 
knots. Finally the Alleys are of five Toises in breadth, with their 
Lists, in the middle of which are planted dwarf fruit Trees and Vines ; 
the great Walk on the Right-hand is raised Terrace-like and Turfft ; 
having a Fountain of five Toises in Diameter, and a Round of Grass 
whereon to set up a Dial or Statue, as also in several places Cut Angles, 
as may be seen upon the Design." 

There can be no doubt, therefore, that Andre Mollet was the 
chief gardener of St. James's Park, As the holder of his pre- 

^ Mollet in all these measurements uses the French toise, or fathom = 
6 feet. 



i86 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

vious position in Sweden, and as pupil of his father, who had 
held an honourable one in France, he probably considered him- 
self quite capable of making his own designs, without appealing 
to Le Notre. Moreover, it appears from the following interest- 
ing letters that it was for Greenwich that Charles II. especially 
desired the services of Le Notre. It seemed, when M. Edouard 
Andre, a few years ago, discovered these fragments among the 
papers relating to foreign affairs in Paris, that the mystery of 
the visit to England would at length be cleared up.^ But while 
they fix the time of his intended visit, they offer no proof that 
he actually came. 

M. Batailler ^ d de Lionne {fragment) . 

Mai, 1662. 
Le Roi d'Angleterre se promenant, il y a deux jours, dans le pare 
de St. James, et me parlant des embellissements qu'il pretendait faire 
dans ses maisons, et particulierement a Greenwich, me temoigna qu'il 
aurait besoin pour cela de M. Lenostre qui a la conduite des jardins du 
Roi, et qu'il me priait d'en ecrire a Sa Majeste, afin qu'elle voulut lui 
permettre de faire un voyage en Angleterre ; depuis, j 'ai su qu'il a charge 
le Comte de Saint Albans de I'amener avec lui au retour de son ambas- 
sade ; il part dans deux jours pour Portsmouth, d'ou il doit passer en 
France, soudain apres que la Reine d'Angleterre aura debarque. 

-^ Le Roi [Louis XIV.] d M. Batailler (fragment). 

Quoique j'aie tous les jours besoin de Lenostre, qui est fort occupe 
pour moi a Fontainebleau, je lui permettrai volontiers d'aller faire un 
tour en Angleterre, puisque le Roi le desire. 

A Paris, le 28 Mai, 1662. 

The Comte de St. Albans here referred to was Henry Jermyn, 
who was created Earl of St. Albans at the Restoration. He 
was constantly going to and fro between England and France 
on missions of State.^ In 1660 he was Ambassador Extra- 

^ I am indebted to the courtesy of M. Edouard Andre for permission 
to publish these letters, which he found when collecting material for 
a life of Le Notre, a work not yet completed. 

^ There is a " passport for Mr. Batailler to return to France with his 
baggage " in the Record Ofhce State Papers, France (vol cxvi., p. 113). 
It has no date, but is endorsed in a modern hand " about 1662." 

^ Rushbrooke Parish Registers, 1567-1856 ; also with Jermyn and 
Davers' Annals, by S. H. A. H., Bury St. Edmunds, 1902. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 187 

ordinary to Paris, to arrange the marriage of Princess Hen- 
rietta with the Duke of Orleans, which took place in March, 
1661. On May 21st, 1662, Charles II, married Catharine of 
Braganza at Portsmouth, and while there St. Albans arrived 
as the bearer of a letter from Henrietta Maria, and returned 
to France with one from Charles II. to his sister. All these 
facts corroborate the letter of M. Batailler. St. Albans was 
soon back again from France, in the company of the Queen- 
mother, and in July, 1662, was with her at Greenwich Palace. 
Together they visited Evelyn at Sayes Court, who records in 
his Diary that they were " pleased to honour " his " poor villa, 
and accept a collation." His movements at the date are, 
therefore, well known,^ and it seems likely that, had such a 
famous personage as Le Notre returned with him from Paris, 
some mention of the fact would have appeared. Had Le Notre 
been among the brilliant company from Greenwich that were 
entertained by John Evelyn, he could hardly have failed to 
note the meeting with such a kindred spirit. In April of the 
same year St. Albans had been given the office of Keeper of 
Greenwich House and Park, but the alterations had been begun 
before by his predecessor. Sir William Boreman, who rendered 
his accounts from September, 1661,^ before Le Notre was 
invited. His accounts are continued to June loth,^ 1662, and 
show payments for planting trees, mowing, etc., and give the 
names of persons to whom payments were made, but have no 
reference to any French gardeners, and the continuation of 
them up to 1663'* of both Greenwich and Hampton Court are 
equally unfruitful of information. Yet, in spite of all this 
strong negative evidence, one curious document came to light 
during the search through the bundles of Treasury papers in 
the Record Office, which adds to the mystery. It is a warrant 
to allow Le Notre to " transport " some horses to France free 
of duty, and it is dated just at the time that, had he come to 

^ Some of his letters are in the British Museum, but have nothing 
relative to gardening in them. 

^ Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, June, 1662. 

3 Ibid. 

* Declared Accounts, Pipe OfiSce, Roll 3428, September ist, 1661, 
June loth, 1662, and Roll 3276, May 31st, 1662-1663, and Bundle 2434/87, 
payments for work done at Hampton Court and Greenwich. 



i88 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

England with St. Albans, he might have been returning home. 
It runs as follows •} 

After &c. Hauing rec'^ his Ma*'" warr*, the Copie whereof I herew"" 
transmitt to yow, w'^'' is as followeth : Our will and pleasure is y' yo''' 
giue imediate order to y^ Farmers of o"^ Customes or such others 

whome it may concerne to suffer and pmitt [blank] Le Nostra our 

Architect to transport fine geldings & one mare into France w"'out 
paym' of Custome or other duty rS- y* yow make allowance for ye 
same vpon ye Account of y° said Farm°" for w'^'' this shalbe yo' 
warr'. Giuen at o' Court at Whitehall the 21st day of Octob*" in 
y« 14th yere of o' Raigne. These are to will and pray yow to pmitt 
the said Le Nostre to transport y^ said fiue geldings and mares into 
France w"'out paym' of Custome or other Duty accordingly. And 
allowance thereof shalbe made vnto yow vpon yo' Accounts. And 
y^ Audito''s are to allow ye same accordingly for doing whereof this 
shalbe a sufficient warr'. Giuen at Southton howse ye 25th of 
Octob' 1662. 

T. Southampton. 

To y' Farmo''s of his Ma''" Customes, orc? 

The finding of this document gave renewed hopes of pro- 
curing incontestable evidence, and all the bills, warrants, and 
payments between May and October, 1662, were further 
searched, but without success. It therefore yet remains to be 
proved that Le Notre was on this side of the Channel, and that 
the horses were not being sent over to him. If he was here, it 
is extremely unusual that no record of any expense being in- 
curred on his behalf is recorded. Nothing seems too trivial for 
these interesting Treasury bundles. When the King was to 
receive " some trees, a basket of cheeses, and a case of wine," 
Lord St. Albans made a formal request for the Dover packet 
to bring them from Calais f and when again, in 1663, Charles II. 
was going to the City, Adrian May is agitated lest the park in 
his charge should be damaged, and the letter to the Lord 
Mayor's secretary is extant, in which he " begs that the park 
may be spared, and that His Majesty will come by Charing 
Cross. "^ The absence of records with regard to Le Notre 

^ Treasury Miscellaneous Warrants, vol. x., p. 137. 

^ The next entry is a warrant to " suffer the servants of Walter 
Mountague, Lord Almoner," to the Queen, to transport twelve horses 
for his use in France free of custom (October 20) . 

^ Calendar of State Papers, 1661-1662. 

* Ibid., Domestic, vol. Ixxx., No. 120. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 189 

among this mass of papers dealing with matters of minor im- 
portance is in itself almost sufficient evidence to prove conclu- 
sively that he did not come to this country.^ 

The Hampton Court accounts also reveal nothing with 
regard to him. The changes there were very extensive, and 
the avenues and canals were " near completed " in 1662. 
There is a pass for " Christian Van Vranen to go to Holland 
and return with 4,000 lime-trees for the King," dated 
January loth, 1662. These were probably for the avenues at 
Hampton Court, and for the rows round the semicircular 
garden, which was the chief feature in the new plan. In the 
centre was a large fountain, with sirens and statues by Farrelli, 
which was removed by William IH., besides twelve smaller 
fountains, evidently made to rival the waterworks of Versailles. 
Between the fountains there were geometrical beds and plots of 
grass, each with a conical-shaped yew in the centre. Some of 
these yews, no longer clipped into stiff forms, are still to be 
seen. 

According to a picture at Levens in Westmorland, a certain 
Beaumont was one of the designers of Hampton Court. He was 
probably employed there later, but before the greater changes 
carried out for William HI. by London and Wise. The 
inscription on the picture runs thus : " M. Beaumont, gardener 
to James H. and Colonel James Grahme. He laid out the 
gardens at Hampton Court and at Levens." Colonel Grahme 
was a staunch adherent of James H., and after the Revolution 
of 1689, for political reasons, found it safest to live in the North, 
on the estate of Levens which he had lately purchased, and it 
was during his time, and under the direction of Beaumont, that 
the gardens assumed the form they retain almost unaltered to 
this day. They are, however, a most perfect example of the 
Dutch type of garden of the period, and even if Beaumont was 
from France, and one of the " French gardeners " employed at 
Hampton Court, his work at Levens is not in the style of 
Le Notre. 

The further alterations at Hampton Court will be dealt 

* None of these State Papers mention Grillet, who by some people 
is said to have come with Le Notre, or carried on work in England for 
him. 



igo A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

with in the next chapter. It is known that they were under- 
taken for William III. by London and Wise. 

The records of the private gardens which Le Notre is said to 
have laid out in conjunction with his friend Grillet supply no 
better information. At none of the places that his name is 
connected with, such as Bretby/ Chats worth, Hall Barn, or 
Wrest, is there anything more than a tradition. At Chats- 
worth there is an agreement signed August, 1688, by the first 
Duke of Devonshire and George London, for " the laying out 
the grounds, their turfing, planting, and gravelling," but there 
is no reference to Le Notre or Grillet. Laborde, writing on 
French gardens in 1808, quotes the garden of a house in 
Suffolk which he says Le Notre had planted " during his stay 
in England," but up to the present I have not been able to 
trace any place which answers to his description.^ 

Even if Le Notre did not actually come himself to England, 
it is most probable that he supplied plans to Charles II., and 
he undoubtedly did so to William III. Some very interesting 
MSS. letters are extant^ from Le Notre to WiUiam Bentinck, 
Earl of Portland, in which, however, he makes no allusion to 
any journey to England. In the first, dated June 21st, 1698, 

^ At Bretby, belonging to the Earl of Carnarvon, some of the garden 
dates from this period, especially a round glass-house, said to be one 
of the oldest in England, althovigh much that is shown in Kips' view 
of the grounds has disappeared ; but there are no records assigning the 
design to Le Notre and Grillet. 

^ M. Edouard Andre drew my attention to the passage which occurs 
in a work by Laborde entitled Descriptions des Nouveaux Jardins de la 
France, Paris, 1808, and runs as follows : " On voit dans un chateau 
du comte de Suffolk le plan d'un jardin plante par le Notre pendant son 
sejour en Angleterre, dans lequel chaque massif est dispose sous la 
forme d'un regiment, et en porte le nom." I have searched vainly to 
discover any place answering this description. The Earl of St. Albans 
was buried at Rushbrooke, but there never has been any French garden 
there. Euston was laid out about this time in the French style, although 
since entirely altered by " Capability Brown." There is nothing 
definite with regard to the designer. Beeverell, in Les Delices de la 
Grande Bretagne, 1707, does not attribute it to Le Notre, although he says 
Euston had " Tons les agremens qu'on peut souhaiter comme les eaux, 
les jardins & les Bois." It has been suggested to me that Thurloe Park, 
near Newmarket, might possibly be the place, as Charles II. frequently 
stayed there, but it has long since been destroyed. 

^ In the possession of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 191 

he thanks Portland for the present of a chain, which, he 
says, is more than he deserves for the Httle work he has done, 
and accepts it only on condition that he would allow a portrait 
of the King (William III.) to be attached to it, and speaks of 
his collection of medals. He then begs Portland to give his 
protection to his nephew, and to enable him to see " the 
houses," and to tell him to write his opinions to Le Notre, who 
was probably to furnish plans for these places. The nephew 
was Claude Desgots, who was born about 1655, and died in 
1734, and was a favourite pupil of Le Notre, and directed for 
him the works at Chantilly. He went to England in 1698, 
and returned to France when his work was finished, " with 
praise and presents," in 1700.^ 

In the second letter from Le Notre to Portland, dated 
July nth, 1698, he thanks him for the kindness shown to this 
nephew, and says with what pleasure he had heard how much 
the Earl had admired Chantilly, and regrets that an attack of 
jaundice had prevented him from personally showing him over 
it. He begs Portland to submit his drawings to the King, and 
asks that any instructions he might have to give might be ex- 
plained to his nephew (Desgots). Le Notre ends by hoping he 
may again have the pleasure of showing the beauties of Ver- 
sailles, etc., to Portland. There is no word of recollection of any 
place in England, although this letter would seem a favourable 
moment for recalling any former acquaintance with places he 
was about to lay out. It is probable that the drawings were 
plans for the garden at Windsor, as, in a letter written at Paris 
on March 7th, 1698, from the Earl of Portland to WilHam III., 
the following passage occurs : " M. Le Nostre me fera un plan 
pour les jardins projettez a Windsor."^ It is not known 
whether Le Notre actually designed anything for Portland 
himself ; there is no record of his employment at Bulstrode, 
the Earl's place in England, or at Zorgoliet, near The Hague, 
although his garden there was a fine one, in the French 
style. 

^ M. Edouard Andre quotes me Le Mercure de France , which says : 
William III., " le renvoya avec louanges et presents, 1700." 

^ Extract from a letter in the possession of the Duke of Portland at 
Welbeck Abbey. 



192 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Le NStre to the Earl of Portland. 

MiLORP, 

Cest auec vn profond respect que Jay Ihonneur de vous Escrire 
et de vous remercier d'un aussy beau present. II est digne de vostre 
grandeur et de beaucoup a.u dessus de mon merite et du peu de trauaille 
que Je fais. Je ne lay pris qua la charge que le Roy y feroit atacher 
son portrait. II y sera bien assure la chaisne nest que trop forte pour 
le suostcnir mais II ne la falloit pas moins pour vn aussy grand Roy : 
personne de Curieux de medalles nen a tant que moy En or et En 
argent depuis sa naissance Jusque a present et de la Reyne Elle[s] 
sont toute belles et bien frape : pardonnez sy Je mis tant sur ma 
Curiosite Elle passe deux cens que de luy et de la Reyne et de ce quil a 
fait frape Contre et pour. 

Je vous suplie sil ce trouue quelque dificulte au plan vous le cognoisse 
mieux que moy et vous voires ce quy ce poura faire ie suis sur que 
vous ferez mieux Entendre a sa Majeste aussy bien et mieux que moy 
vous y aporterez les raisons pourquoy le tout Ensemble a este fait : 
ayez agreable Milors que mon neueu aye Ihonneur de vostre protection 
et de luy estre fauorable en son petit voyage ie vous en seray tres 
sensiblement oblige sy vous le voulez bien le faire aller voir les maisons 
et quy vous dites son sentiment suiuant les plans et suiuant ce quy 
voira des lieux : luy comendez de men escrire ce quy En aura Cognu 
et surtout Monsegneur de me donner Ihonneur de votre amitie, Je vous 
ay cherche partout Jusque a chantilly mais sans auoir Ihonneur de 
vous aller Embrasser et de vous assurer que Je suis, 
Monsegneur, Milors, 

Vostre Tre humble et tres obeissant Seruiteur, 
■'-) Le Nostre. 

des thuillerie[s], Ce Samedy, 21'"° Juin, 1698. 

[Endorsed by the Earl of Portland, 
Mr. le Nostre, 21 Juyn.] 

Le Noire to the Earl of Portland. 

Milors et Monsegneur, 

Je ne scaurois assez vous remercier de toutes les bontez que 
vous avez pour moij que vous tesmoigne a mon nepueu. En verite 
Milors vous avez respondu a Paris et a la cour vnne Estime sy grande 
quil ny aura personne quy puisse y respondre, apres vous et a vostre 
generosite et a la grandeur de vostre Ilustre ambassade tons nos Cour- 
tisans et gens de robe et de cour sont obliges dauouer vostre bonne 
Conduitte et Jusque a Mons[e]gneur Le prince quy ma tesmoigne 
lestime quil a eu de vostre Visite et les louange[s] que vous avez fait sur 
la beaute de tout Chantilly aussy vous y avez este receu es Roy. Sy 
ma grande Jaunesse^ eu pue me faire aller ie scay le plaisir que jaurois 
fait a son Altesse et jaurois eu I'honneur de vous faire remarque les 

— _ 

^ /a«misse = jaundice. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 193 

beaux Endrois et vous faire aduouer que cest vn beau naturel de voir 
tombe vnneriuiere dune chutte estonnante et fait lentre d'un Canal 
sans fin il ne faut point demander d'ou vient leau dc ce Canal. Par- 
donne je menporterois sur beaucoup de chose ayant tout conduit 
j usque a sa derniere auenue et Entre en sortant de la foreste pour 
venir sur la Terasse ce quy ce void du coup d'oeil sur le bord du grand 
Escalier. Sy ie menporte cest que je le dis a la personne quy a meilleure 
goust et que Jaye trouve tres peu cognoise la beaute des Jardins ny 
des ouvrage[s] darchitetture. Ce nest pas Milors que je veille vous 
donner de lencens vous ne donne pas dans ses fumee[s]. II faudroit 
vnne autre main et vnne autre plume que la mienne pour les escrire 
receuez au moins les miennes elles sont Milors bien vray et ie vous 
suplie au moins de les receuoir daussy bon ceur que je vous les offre et 
vous prie de faire agreer au Roy les desseings que je fais et sy ce trouue 
quelque dificulte ie vous demande avec vn profond respect de me 
mander les Intentions de sa Majeste et puis les vostres les expliquer a 
mon nepueu par un memoire toutes choses quy vous plaira de faire 
ie vous suplie sans abuser de vostre bontez. Souuenez vous de tout 
ce que vous auez veu de Jardins en France Versaille Fontainebleau 
Vau le Viconte et Les Thuilleries et sur tout Chantilly ie croy avoir 
encore Ihonneur de vous entretenir et sy cela ne vous incomode point 
Je pense que je vous entretiendre souuent ne pouuant mieux et a quy 
les pouvoir faire quy les cognoisse mieux que vostre grandeur a quy 
je suplie de me permettre de lassurer que je suis avec vn profond 
respect. 

Mons[e]gneur 
vostre tre humble et 
tres obeissant seruiteur 

Le Nostre. 
Ce Vendredy, ii""^ Juillet, 1698. 

[Endorsed by the Earl of Portland, 
II Juillet, '98. 

Mr. le Notre.] 

It is certain that French influence was strong on this 
side of the Channel, whether Le Notre ever crossed it or 
not. Any garden made just after the Restoration was an 
imitation on a small scale of the French style. Lincoln's Inn, 
which was much more frequented by the public then than now, 
was altered in 1663 to suit the prevailing fashion. The wide 
terrace along the wall which divides the Inn garden from 
the " Fields " was made that year, together with " grass 
plots " adorned with statues. Pepys took an interest in these 
changes, as he did in St. James's Park, and on June 27th, 
1663, there " walked up and down to see the new garden." 

13 



194 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

French taste was ruling all designers, and if plans were not 
actually made by the master of the school or his pupils, they 
were all in his manner, as interpreted by his more remote 
followers. 

One feature which was apparent in every garden of this date 
was the bowling-green or alley, which had come into fashion a 
hundred years earlier. The pastime of bowls was even allowed 
within the precincts of some religious houses, as there is a 
notice of a bowling-alley belonging to the Monastical Church 
of Durham in a description of that house before the sup- 
pression, written in 1593. " On the right hand, as yow goe 
out of the Cloysters into the Fermery (or Infirmary) was the 
Commone House, and a Maister thereof. . . . Ther was 
belonging to the Common house a garding and a bowHnge allie, 
on the back side of the said house, towardes the water, for the 
Novyces sume tymes to recreat themeselves, when they had 
remedy of there master, he standing by to se ther good order. "^ 
At Levens there still remain some of the bowls with the 
Bellingham crest, and as Colonel Grahme bought the place 
from the Bellinghams in 1687, the bowling-green must 
have existed some years previously. Many of the old 
bowling-greens still remain. There is a very fine one at 
Chilham Castle, in Kent, 207 feet long and 126 feet wide ; also 
good examples at Cus worth and Bramham in Yorkshire, 
Holme Lacy in Herefordshire, Campsea Ash in Suffolk, 
Burley-on-the-Hill in Rutland, at Powis Castle, and many 
other places. They were of various forms and sizes, and there 
was generally a raised bench or terrace on one or more sides of 
the open green, frequently with a pavilion, from which the 
spectators looked on at the game ; while the bowHng-alley, on 
the contrary, was completely hidden by overshadowing trees. 
A bowling-green at Warwick Castle is thus described in 1673 : 
" Within the gate ... is a fair Court, and within that, encom- 
passed with a pale, a dainty bowHng-green, set about with 
laurel, firs and other curious trees ;"^ and in 1681 the Duke of 
Norfolk's garden near Norwich is described by the same 

^ Rites of Durham, Surtees Society, p. 75. 

2 Thomas Baskerville's Journal, MSS. of the Duke of Portland, Hist. 
MSS. Reports 13. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 195 

writer, Thomas Baskerville ; " Taking a boat for pleasure to 
view this city by water, the boatman brought us to a fair 
garden belonging to the Duke of Norfolk, having handsome 
stairs leading to the water, by which we ascended into the 
garden, and saw a good bowling-green, and many fine walks." 
In his journals, Baskerville notices the public bowhng-greens 
at all the small towns, and attached to many of the inns 
he stayed at. Thus, of Pontefract Castle he writes, " of 
which now only remains the platform and stump of the bottom 
of the wall 2 or 3 yards above ground, but yet it is handsome, 
because employed to fine gardens and a bowling-green, where 
you may have for your money good wine " ; also at Bedford, 
" the ruins of an old castle, containing within it a fine bowling- 
green." Among others he notes Saffron Walden, " a very good 
bowling-green without the town," and of Watton, a small town 
in Norfolk, he saj^s there is Httle remarkable, save a fine new 
bowhng-green at the " George Inn." These stretches of good 
turf must have added much to the beauty of places, and in 
the small towns served as public gardens and recreation 
grounds. 

Every garden also contained one or more sundials. They 
formed, as a rule, a centre of the design, and were in themselves 
a fitting and appropriate ornament. The sundial has frequently 
survived destruction when all other traces of an old garden 
have been obHterated. At Exton, in Rutlandshire, the old 
sundial stands in front of the house which was burnt down, 
almost the only vestige of the garden which formerly lay in 
front of its windows. On some dials the owner's coat of arms 
was used to form the style, as in the one at Euston in Suffolk ; 
or on others the motto of the family was inscribed round the 
dial, which data is often a help in fixing the year of their con- 
struction.^ Occasionally an entire garden was laid out like a 
sundial, the figures being planted in box or yew. There is a 
good example of one after this design at Wentworth Stain- 
borough, which was made in 1732, in which the letters are of 
box and the style of yew. Loggan's views of Oxford and 
Cambridge, especially in the plans of New College, Oxford, and 

^ For descriptions and mottoes on sundials, see The Book of Svmdials, 
collected by Mrs. Alfred Gatty, 1872. 

13—2 



196 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Queen's and Pembroke, Cambridge, show good designs of this 
kind of sundial.^ 

Gardeners from all times have had great difficulties to con- 
tend with in the extirpation of garden pests. Their minds 
were chiefly exercised in devising schemes for keeping down 
the moles. When Queen Ehzabeth paid a visit to Theobalds, 
and Lord Burghley prepared a masque in her honour in May, 
1591, speeches were recited before her, composed by George 
Peele, describing the processes of making the garden, and 
comparing its beauties to the virtues of the Queen. The first 
speech was that of the " Mole-catcher," which began thus : 
" I cannot discourse of knots and mazes, sure I am that the 
ground was so knotty that the gardener was amazed to see it, 
and as easy had it been, if I had not been, to make a shaft of 
a cammock^ as a garden of that croft. "^ The ordinary mole- 
catchers were paid by the number of moles they caught, 
" usually I2d. a dozen for all the olde moles they catch, and 
6d. a dozen for younge ones. Now as for those who send pur- 
posely for a mole-catcher to gette a single mole in a howse, 
garden or the like, they will seldom take lesse than 2d. and some- 
times 3d. for her if they gette her, because they have payment 
onely for those they catch and if they misse the lose is theires."'* 
The farmer Henry Best, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, who 
made these notes, has also left the account of what he paid 
himself to the mole-catchers. In " 1628, April 28, paid to 
John Pearson for kilUng monies in the carre one and a half 
dozen olde ones is^d., two dozen young ones 6d.," and so on. 
Several curious recipes for killing moles are found in old 
gardening books. Sharrock gives the following " Remedies 
against Moles "^ : "By watering moles are drowned or driven 
up into so narrow a compass that they may be easily taken. 
Mr. Bhth relates one spring, about March, a mole-catcher and 

1 Cantabrigia and Oxonia Illustrata, DsLvidLoggan, 1675. A sundial of 
this description in box and yew has lately been planted in Mr. Leopold 
Rothschild's garden at Ascott, near Leighton Buzzard. 

^ = a crooked tree. 

^ Dramatic and Poetical Works of R. Greene and G. Peele, by Dyce, 1861 . 

* Rural Economy in Yorkshire, 1641, Surtees Society, 1857. 

^ An Improvement in the Art of Gardening, by Robert Sharrock, 3rd 
edition 1694. 




NETHERTON. 

From a sketch by Edmond Piidcanx, 1727. 




LEAD STATUE AT GLEMHAM. 

On the sundial are the arms of Elilin Yale, 1641-1721. 



To face page 196. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 197 

his boy in about ten dayes time, in a ground of 90 acres, took 
3 bus[hels] old and young. Among Mr. Speed's notes there are 
these receipts : Take red herrings and cutting them in pieces 
burn the pieces on the molehills, or you may put garlicke or 
leeks in the mouths of their Hill, and the moles will leave the 
ground. I have not tryed these ways, and therefore refer the 
reader to his own tryal, behef or doubt." 

For the destruction of other garden pests many equally 
fanciful remedies were in vogue. Lawson recommends to pick 
off all caterpillars with the hand, " and tread them under foot." 
" I like nothing of smoake among my trees," he says ; " un- 
naturall heates are nothing good for naturall trees." He 
enumerates the things necessary for keeping the garden free 
from " beasts " — " besides your out strong fence, you must have 
a fayre and swift greyhound, a stone-bowe, gunne, and if neede 
require, an apple with an hooke for a Deere, and a Hare-pipe 
for a hare " ; and against blackbirds, bullfinches, and other small 
birds, " the best remedy here is a stone-bow, a peece." No 
survey of the garden would be complete without mention of 
the bees, whose hives were to be found in them all, and the 
management of which was considered a necessary part of a 
gardener's duties, and writers on gardening subjects generally 
devoted a chapter to bees.-"^ 

One memorable event in the time of Charles I. was the for- 
mation of the first Botanical Garden in England, at Oxford, 
in 1632. This was just a hundred years after the establishment 
of the earhest in Europe, that at Padua. Henry, Earl of 
Danby, founded and endowed it ; he gave five acres of land, 
also built greenhouses, and a house for the gardener. The fine 
gateways, bearing a date and inscription in praise of the 
founder, were designed by Inigo Jones. Jacob Bobart, a 
German, from Brunswick, first had charge of it, and he was 
succeeded by his son, also Jacob. The entrance to the garden 
from the meadow was guarded by two large yew-trees, clipped 
into the form of giants, which have been the subject of much 
rival wit, and no less than three ballads on them have been 
preserved.^ 

^ Thomas Hill, The Right Ordering of Bees, 1593 and 1608. 

^ Memorials of Oxford, by James Ingram ; Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1837. 



198 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

The marshes for bog plants, to be seen at Kew and elsewhere 
at the present day, which are the admiration of lovers of a 
" wild garden," are no new thing. Bobart had one at Oxford, 
which is thus described by Robert Sharrock.-"^ " The Artificial 
Bog is made by digging a hole in any stiff clay, and filhng it 
with earth taken from a bog ... of this sort, in our garden here 
in Oxford, we have one artificially made by Bobart, for the 
preservation of Boggy plants, where being sometimes watered, 
they thrive for a year or two as well as in their natural places." 
A catalogue of the garden, which contained some 1,600 species 
and varieties, was published by Bobart in 1648. Of these 
nearly 600 were native plants. The catalogue is a tiny 
book, and no space is given to describe the flowers. It is 
merely a list of names, the first part Latin-Enghsh, the second 
English-Latin. The hst contains among trees " Abies mas," 
" male Firretree," " Arbutus," " Strawberry tree," " Arbor 
Judae," " Judas tree," " Ash tree," etc. Among the flowers 
are about 20 sorts of Roses, including " York and Lan- 
caster, Provence, Austrian and Cinnamon, 11 Violas, 9 Cle- 
matis, 7 Colchicum and 9 Crocus, double and single Peony, 
4 Foxgloves, 10 Lychnis, Campian, Bee Orchis, Orchis serapius," 
etc. The list also contains " Nicotiana, English Tabacca," 
" Yucca, Indian Bread," " Stinging nettle," and four kinds of 
moss, " cup, club, hard sea, and tree mosse."^ The plant 
names follow each other in alphabetical order, quite regardless 
of any classification. The first attempt to separate indigenous 
from foreign plants was made by William How in his work 
entitled Phytologia Britannica, 1650. 

Although this is not an attempt to compile a history of the 
progress of Botany, a task performed by Richard Pulteney with 
chronological accuracy more than a century ago, that science 
is so intimately connected with gardening that some references 
to it cannot be left out, for how could the immense number of 
plants now cultivated be understood or identified if it were 

^ An Improvement to the Art of Gardening, 3rd edition, 1694. 

^ A second and enlarged edition was published in 1658, with the 
co-operation of Philip Stephens and William Brown, both botanists of 
Oxford. It is a great improvement on the first, and makes frequent 
reference to Gerard and Parkinson. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 199 

not for systematic classification ? The two great pioneers in 
this work are John Ray and Robert Morison. Their relative 
merit has been the subject of some discussion. Both began to 
work out a system about the same time. Ray gave an outline 
of his classification in 1668, in the tables in Bishop Wilkins's 
Real or Universal Character. Morison's first ideas are embodied 
in his work Hortus Blesensis, 1669, and further developed in 
his Plantarum Umbelliferarum Distrihutio, 1672, and his 
History of Plants,'^ 1680. Ray's complete system, shown in his 
Methodus Plantarum, did not appear until two years later, his 
Synopsis in 1690, and the revised Methodus in 1703. Morison 
professes to have worked out the system entirely from Nature, 
but Ray, with perhaps more honesty, owns his indebtedness to 
Caesalpinus and other foreign writers, and even to Morison. 
It was Ray who first separated the Monocotyledons from 
Dicotyledons, and thus laid the basis of the " Natural System " 
now universally followed. Ray (1628-1705) was the son of a 
blacksmith near Braintree, in Essex ; he was educated at the 
Grammar School there, and in 1644 went to Cambridge, where 
he soon showed his love of natural history, and especially of 
Botany, and published his catalogue of plants round Cambridge 
in 1660, He travelled much about England, and also spent 
three years abroad with his friend, also a naturalist, Francis 
Willoughby. In 1667 he was made a Fellow of the Royal 
Society, and contributed many writings to their Trans- 
actions. He settled near his native place in 1679, and there 
passed the remainder of his life in study, and the production of 
his great works on Natural History and Botany. Morison 
(1620-1683) was a native of Aberdeen. Being a staunch 
Royalist, when the war broke out he joined the army, and on 
the failure of the King's cause went to France. There he 
studied, and became so distinguished a botanist that he was 
appointed Curator of the fine gardens of the Duke of Orleans at 
Blois in 1650. Charles II. invited Morison to return to 
England, and gave him ;^200 a year and the title of Royal 
Professor of Botany and Superintendent of the Royal Gardens.^ 

^ Plantarum Histories Universalis Oxoniensis, Pars Secunda. The 
first part was never published. 1680. 
^ Pulteney's Sketches, 1790. 



200 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

In 1669 he was appointed Professor of Botany at Oxford, with 
the degree of Doctor of Physic, and there he lectured and 
laboured at his Hisioria Plantarum Oxoniensis until his death, 
caused by an accident, in 1683. The systems evolved by these 
two men differed from those of all preceding botanists, inas- 
much as they were the first to classify plants according to some 
real likeness in the fruit or flower, and not merely from 
similarity of habit or place of growth. Morison divided her- 
baceous plants into fifteen classes ; Ray into twenty-five, and 
trees and shrubs into eight. These systems, which paved the 
way, so to speak, for Jussieu, Robert Brown, and others, came 
at a time when they were most needed. From East and West, 
from the Old World and from the New, plants were pouring in 
yearly in increasing numbers ; and the necessity of arranging 
these newly-acquired treasures was the foremost task of 
botanists. 



-^ 



CHAPTER X 

GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 

" When lavish Art her costly work had done, 
The honour and the prize of bravery 
Was by the garden from the Palace won." 

Cowley. 

A GOOD idea of the number of gardens existing in England 
in the time of William and Mary^ may be gathered 
from the diary of Ceha Fiennes/ who travelled on horseback 
through the country. In every county, and at almost every 
stage of her journey, she mentions or describes some garden 
more or less notable. The fountains, or " waterworks," were 
perhaps the most characteristic feature in the larger gardens, 
and of these she gives many elaborate descriptions. At 
Chatsworth there were fountains innumerable, one a willow 
tree " which rains from each leaf," and there was also a basin 
in the middle " of one garden that's very large and by sluces 
besides the images severall pipes plays out y*" water : about 
30 large and small pipes altogether, some fEush it up that it 
ffrothes like snow." At Wilton there was a grotto with pipes 
concealed apparently all round and over the roof, which sent 
forth a sort of shower-bath which " washes y'^ spectators." 
Again, at Bradby, Lord Chesterfield's house, " In one garden 
there are 3 fountaines wherein stands great statues. Each 
side on their pedistalls is a dial, one for y*' sun, y^ other a clock 
w<=^ by y^ water worke is moved and strikes y^ hours, and 
chimes y® quarters, and when they please play Lilibolaro on 
y* chimes. All this I heard when I was there." 

These waterworks, introduced first in Tudor times, were now 

^ Through England on a Side-Saddle in the Time of William and Mary, 
1888. 



202 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

very much in vogue. The ideas for them cam.e from abroad, 
both from France and Holland. Fountains in the French style 
were conspicuous jets of water or cascades falling into stone 
basins, but these " waterworks " of quaint forms and surprise 
arrangements were typical of Dutch gardens, and William of 
Orange brought them into popular favour in this country, 
together with many other Dutch fashions. In 1621, Lord 
Chaworth in his diary^ remarks on the " verie fyne gardens " 
surrounding the house of the Infanta Isabella in Brussels, 
" wherein are y^ most varietie of the best waterworks of y^ 
world." The gardens at Boughton, Northamptonshire, were 
laid out during this reign, when the house was rebuilt by 
Ralph, first Duke of Montague. They were very extensive, 
covering over a hundred acres, and were remarkable for the 
" sumptuous waterworks." There was the " parterre of 
statues, the parterre of Basins and the water parterre, wherein 
is an octagon basin whose circumference is 216 yards, which 
in the middle of it has a jet d'eau, whose height is above 50 
feet, surrounded with other smaller jet d'eaus. . . . The 
Canal at the bottom of all, is about 1,500 yards in length in 
four lines falling into each other at right angles. At the lower 
end of it is a very noble Cascade . . . adorned with vases and 
statues. The Cascade has five falls. The perpendicular about 
seven feet. A line or range of jet d'eaus in number thirteen are 
placed at the Head of the Cascade. . . . There are also several 
jet d'eaus in the basin underneath. Also the knot of regu- 
larly figur'd Islets beset with Aquatick Plants."^ Such cascades 
were quite formal, all built of solid masonry, and are totally 
unlike the " cascades " or miniature waterfalls of a later period. 
The gardens at Boughton were in the French style, but the 
head-gardener at this time was a Dutchman called Vandert- 
meulen. 

The gardens described by Celia Fiennes have all alike 
gravel and grass walks, shady alleys of clipped trees, " some 
walks like arbours close, others shady, others open, some 
gravel, some grass." Standard cypress or yews " cut in 
severall forms were dotted about." Trim hedges of holly, 

1 Loseley MSS. 

2 Natural History of Northamptonshire, by John Morton, 1712. 



GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 203 

laurel or box, divided the parts of the garden : for instance, 
" the front garden w^^ has the largest fountaine," from " the 
garden of flower trees, and all sorts of herbage," or the one 
with " grass plotts " from the bowling-green. Occasionally 
mention is made of " fine greens," and " dwarfs,"-^ or oranges 
and lemons ; a shelter or greenhouse. Or, perhaps, the 
description of a broad terrace with stone steps ; a wilderness 
planted with pines ; a grove with alleys cut through ; a pond, 
a canal, or a fine gateway, varies the recital of her travels and 
gives a reality to the scenes she recalls. At Mr. Thetwin's, 
near Stafford, she admires the " fine rows of trees " in the park, 
" ffirs Scots and Noroway, and y^ picanther." She remarks, 
at Trygothy, in Cornwall, the drawing-room opened into the 
garden, " w^ has gravell walks round and across, but y^ 
squares are full of goosebery and shrub trees, and looks more 
like a kitchen-garden." Of Blith, near Worksop, she says, 
" I eate good fruite there," and she made her first acquaintance 
with orange- trees at Lady Brook's house in Wiltshire. " Here 
was fine flowers and greens, Dwarfe-trees and Oring and Lemon 
trees in rows w'^ fruite and flowers at once and some ripe, 
they are y^ first oring trees I ever saw." 

She evidently admires gardens in the new French or Dutch 
style more than the gardens of the last generation. She 
passes over Haddon, merely observing, " it's a good old house, 
all built of stone on a hill, and behind it is a ffine grove of 
high trees and good gardens, but nothing very curious as y^ 
mode now is." Again, of " Mr. Paul Folie's seate called 
Stoake," near Hereford, she writes : " It's a very good old 
house of timber worke but old ffashion'd, and good roome for 
gardens, but all in an old fform and mode and Mr. Fohe intends 
to make both a new house and gardens. The latter I saw 
staked out . . . y^ ffine Bowling-green walled in and a Summer- 
house in it all new." At Barmstone, in Yorkshire, she notices 
" the gardens are large, and are capable of being made very 
ffine, they now remain in the old fashion." Lord Sandwich, 
near Huntingdon, was having a new garden made. " The 
gardens and wilderness and greenhouse will be very fine when 
quite ffinshed, with the dwarf trees and gravell walks. There 
^ = fruit trees cut small. 



204 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

is a large fountaine or bason which is to resemble that in the 
privy garden at Whitehall, which will front the house. The 
high terrass walks look out on the road." 

At Sir John St. Barbe's house, near Rumsey, new gardens 
were also being made — " not finish' d but will be very ffine, 
w"" Large Gates open to the Grounds beyond, some of w^ 
are planted with trees." The wish to have " severall places 
with grates to Look through " was the latest development 
of the craving to look beyond the garden, which was already 
apparent in earlier times. Such arrangements of spaces, with 
gates or iron bars, in the walls, is constantly noticeable in 
the views of gardens early in the eighteenth century. This 
desire to extend the view, led to the planning of the park 
and avenues to correspond with the open spaces at the side 
or end of the garden walks. These attempts to harmonize the 
garden with its surroundings gradually developed, until the 
walls were dispensed with, and the " landscape " style super- 
seded the older forms. In studying the changes in design, 
it seems to me that there was no sudden " leaping the garden 
wall." We must look for the beginnings of the landscape 
style in the gradual change or decadence of the old formal 
school. The Dutch style, introduced by Wilham III., was an 
exaggeration of the old manner of clipping trees. Topiary 
work in yew, box, and other " greens," was carried to such an 
excess, the gardens were so overcrowded with cut trees, as 
to become the laughing-stock of the succeeding generation, 
and so bring about their own destruction. 

The word " knot " does not often occur in books of this date, 
and the word " parterre," which takes its place, requires some 
explanation. Meager, in The English Gardener, 1688, gives 
a list of herbs " fit to set knots with," of which " Dutch or 
French Box, it is the handsomest, the most durable, and the 
cheapest to keep." And in the same chapter he refers his 
reader to the plates at the end of the book, where he has 
" presented to view divers forms or plots for gardens." In 
1697 he speaks of parterres, and his designs are very similar. 
Sir Thomas Hanmer, in notes for his proposed work on garden- 
ing, also uses the two words : " If the ground be spacious, 
the next adjacent quarters or parterres, as the French call 
them, are often of fine turf, but as low as any green to bowl 




PARTERRE. 
From " The Retired Gardener," by London and Wise. (No. M.) 




PARTERRE. 

From " The Retired Gardener," by London and Wise. (No. Vn.)t 



To face page 204. 



n 



GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 205 

on ; cut out curiously into embroidery of flowers, and shapes 
of arabesques, animals, or birds, or feuillages, and the small 
alleys or intervals filled with several coloured sands and dust 
with much art, with but few flowers in such knots, and those 
only such as grow very low lest they spoil the beauty of the 
embroidery." Parterre is thus explained in Miller's Diction- 
ary, 1724 : " A level division of ground, which for the most 
part faces the South, and is best in front of a House, and is gener- 
ally furnished with greens and flowers. There are several sorts 
of parterres, as bowHng-green, or plain parterres, and parterres 
of embroidery. . . . Plain parterres most beautiful in England 
by reason of their turf, and that decency and unaffected 
simplicity it affords the eye ; others are cut into shell and scroll 
work, with sand alleys between them, which are the finest 
paterre works esteemed in England." 

In The Retired Gardener, translated from the French of 
Louis Liger, by London and Wise, no less than eleven sorts 
of parterres are described, but all are merely variations of 
design in grass, beds or cut-work, and patterns of scrolls and 
foliage or " embroidery, like we have on our cloaths." The 
two following are examples of his descriptions : No. VI. " The 
Form of a Parterre partly cut-work and partly green Turf 
with Borders. These Parterres are esteem' d according to 
their Design and their Symmetry. They look very well in great 
gardens as well as small, the verdure of the grass, and the 
Enamel of the Flowers with which the Compartments ought 
to be fill'd according to the different seasons of the year, present 
a charming object to the sight. These parterres may likewise 
be set off with such Pots as I mentioned before [i.e., Dutch 
jars) or surrounded with Boxes fill'd with Orange Trees or 
with other shrubs of like Nature." VII. " The Form of a 
Parterre with cut-work of Grass and Imbroidery in the middle 
and with Borders of Grass on the outsides. This sort of Design 
is very agreeable and serves for a great ornament to a garden, 
especially where the grass-work is well kept up, the Box 
well order' d, and the grass- work well cut ; and to give it yet 
a farther Beauty, you may fill the Flourishings and Branch- 
work with a black earth, provided the Paths or Alleys be 
cover' d with a yellow or white sand, different colours serving 
to set off the Parterre the better." In some cases the plot was 



2o6 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

filled with one design, in others it was divided into four, and 
the pattern repeated in each section. 

Between the parterres were borders, formed either of a 
sanded path with a strip of grass or flowers on either side, or 
shrubs placed at intervals, but the " most common" borders 
" are wrought with a sharp rising in the middle, like the back 
of an ass, and set with yews, shrubs, and flowers." Canons 
Ashby as it is at the present day is a good example of this 
date of garden, and the parterres, as shown in the plan kindly 
made by the owner, the late Sir Henry Dryden, are such as 
might have been seen in any garden of this date, though the 
design perhaps is more simple than in many of them. The 
garden, originally made in 1550, was altered in 1708, and has 
defied the changes of fashion for nearly two centuries. It is 
just such a garden as CeHa Fiennes described as " neatly kept, 
with fine gravel walks, grass-plotts, and beyond a garden of 
flower- trees and all sorts of herbage and store of fruits." 

Incidental remarks in that lady's journal throw light upon 
town-gardening. Before such great difficulties in the way of 
smoke had to be contended with, town-gardens needed no more 
care than country ones, and many town-houses had fine 
gardens attached to them. When they were simple, small, and 
enclosed, there was no reason why as pleasant and secluded 
ones should not be made in towns as in the open country. 
Fine old-fashioned gardens are still to be seen in the Cathedral 
cities, or in some few large market-towns where smoke and 
overcrowding have not destroyed them. But long ago, when 
each good house had its garden, the aspect of the towns must 
indeed have been different. Public parks and gardens are 
no new invention, although so vastly improved even of late 
years, in spite of all the disadvantages of fog, smoke, and 
darkness. Certainly from Cowley's poem one would imagine 
the smoke nuisance to have been as troublesome in the middle 
of the seventeenth as at the beginning of the twentieth century : 

" Who that has reason and a smell 
Would not among Roses and Jesamine dwell 
Rather than all his spirits choak 
With exhalations of dust and smoak, 
And all the uncleanness which does drown 
In pestilential clouds a populous town." 



n 



GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 207 

Leeds, though then but a village in comparison with the 
Leeds of to-day, is thus described by Celia Fiennes : " A large 
town, severall large streetes, cleane and well pitch'd, and good 
houses all built of stone. Some have good gardens and steps 
up to their houses, and walls before them." Of Bedford she 
writes :" It is an old building washed by the river Ouse ... its 
stored with very good fhsh, and those which have gardens on its 
brinke keepes sort of . . . Baskets which keeps the ffish by 
chaines to the sides of the Banks in each man's garden. It 
(the river) runs by a ground which is made into a fine bowling 
green . . . well kept with seates and summer houses in it." At 
Newcastle she finds — " This country all about is full of this 
Coale ; y^ sulphur of it taints y^ aire and it smells strongly to 
strangers ... its a noble town . . . and most resembles London 
of any place in England. . . . There is a pleasant bowHng- 
green, a Little walk out of the town w'^ a Large gravel walk 
round it, w'^ two Rows of trees on each side. . . . There is a 
pretty Garden, by y^ side a shady walk, its a sort of spring 
garden where the Gentlemen and Ladyes walke in the evening ; 
— there is a green house in the garden." 

Spring Gardens, which she here refers to, were chosen as 
the favourite resort of fashion in London. They had been in 
existence since the first quarter of the century, and originally 
were part of the royal park of St. James, as appears from 
entries in the Exchequer Rolls : 

1617. " digging planting etc: of roses in the Spring garden in (St, 
James') Park . . . Gardeners, women weeders : in the spring garden . . . 
Pheasants and wild fowl in the spring garden." 

By the middle of the century, however, it was a public garden, 
of which the street now bearing its name marks the site. 

In London many old gardens were already disappearing, and 
Celia Fiennes writes thus in her diary : " There was formerly 
in y*" Citty severall houses of y*" Noblemens w''^ Large gardens 
and out houses and great attendances, but of Late are pulled 
down, and built into streetes and squares and called by y^ 
names of y^ noblemen ; — and this practise by almost all even 
just to y® Court, excepting one or two. Northumberland and 
Bedford House, Lord Montagues, . . . and Whitehall with its 



208 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

privy garden and famous fountain." A description of the 
gardens near London in 1691, by Gibson, has been preserved.^ 
He enumerates twenty-eight gardens, five of those being 
nursery-gardens — the Brompton Nursery, one " Clements " at 
Mile End, and Ricketts, Pearson and Darby, all three at 
Hoxton, Some of the gardens are more distant from London, 
as Hampton Court, Sir Henry Capel's at Kew, and Sir WiHiam 
Temple's at Sheen. At Beddington, where the first orange 
trees in England had been planted by the Carew family, they 
had been so well taken care of that it still held the foremost 
place among the orangeries in this country. This orangery 
was two hundred feet long, and the trees were about thirteen 
feet high, and in one year yielded ten thousand oranges. 
Gibson also relates that the Queen Dowager, at Hammer- 
smith, had a good greenhouse, " but was not for curious plants 
or flowers " ; however, her gardener. Monsieur Hermon Van 
Guine, raised orange and lemon trees, which he had " to dispose 
of." Arlingtongarden was" afairplat." Sir Thomas Cooke's, 
at Hackney,^ though very large, was still being added to ; Lord 
Ranelagh's was " elegantly-designed," though " but newly- 
made." The Archbishop, at Lambeth, was then improving the 
garden there, and putting up a greenhouse " of three rooms, the 
middle having a stove under it ; — the foresides of the rooms are 
almost all glass, the roof covered with lead." Gibson only 
mentions those gardens which he visited in December, 1691 ; 
others equally well known he passes over. He does not notice 
the large nursery between Spitalfields and Whitechapel, the 
owner of which Meager refers to as " my very Loving friend 
Captain Qarrle," and gives a long list of fruit-trees, any one of 
which this friend can " furnish," besides " divets other rare 
and choice plants."^ He omits, also, Essex House in the Strand, 
and Somerset House ; also Southampton House, Bloomsbury, 
where the gardens were designed by Lord Wilham Russell, 
who was beheaded in 1683. The garden at Fulham, which had 

^ Printed in the Archceologia, 1794, and reprinted in Hazlitt, Glean- 
ings in Old Garden Literature, 1887. 

^ Rams Chapel was built in 1723 on part of the site of this garden. In 
a deed, dated July 20th, 1704, in the possession of the chapel authorities, 
two summer-houses are mentioned, one of which is used as the vestry. 

^ Leonard Meager, The English Gardener, 1688, p. 60. 



GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 209 

been made famous by Bishop Grindal, who introduced the 
tamarisk in EHzabeth's reign, was further improved by Bishop 
Compton at this date, and there are splendid hickory and other 
trees of his planting still to be seen there, " He had a thousand 
species of exotick plants in his stoves and gardens, in which 
last place he had endenizoned a great many that have been 
formerly thought too tender for this cold climate. There were 
few days in the years, till towards the latter part of his life, but 
he was actually in his garden, ordering and directing the 
Removal and Replacing of his Trees and plants."^ 

Besides the private gardens, there were the parks, which 
even then added beauty to the country round London, St. 
James's Park, and " another much Larger, Hide parke, w'^'' 
is for Riding on horseback, but mostly for coaches, there 
being a ring railed in, round w* a gravel way, . . . the rest 
of the park is green, and full of deer, there are Large ponds 
w''' fish and fowle."^ Beyond Hyde Park was Kensington, a 
favourite palace of King William, and there, again, was a 
good garden, begun by him, and completed under Queen Anne. 
The gardeners employed there were the famous London and 
Wise, who owned the large nursery at Brompton, hard by. 
This was the finest nursery of the day, and they kept an 
immense collection of plants. The tender greens from the 
gardens at Kensington were housed during the winter at 
Brompton, where, although a fine collection in themselves, 
they took " but little room in comparison with "^ those belong- 
ing to the nursery. 

George London, who was the principal founder of the 
Brompton Nurseries, was a pupil of John Rose, and at one 
time gardener to Bishop Compton. He travelled abroad, both 
before and after he established the nursery, and visited Ver- 
sailles after the Peace of Ryswick, when he went to France with 
the Earl of Portland. He died in 1713. The nursery " was 
started by him in the reign of James II. in conjunction with 
Cook, gardener to the Earl of Essex at Cassiobury ; Lucre, 

^ Switzer, Ichnographia rustica, 17 18. Bishop Compton (1632-1713). 
Some of the old trees have lately been blown down. See details in my 
London Parks and Gardens, 1907. 

^ Celia Fiennes' Diary. ^ Gibson, 1691. 

14 



210 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

gardener to the Queen Dowager at Somerset House ; and Field, 
gardener to the Earl of Bedford, at Bedford House, in the 
Strand."^ These partners designed the gardens at Longleat. 
" The four took it in turns to go down to lay out "^ the grounds. 
Lucre and Field died, then Cook retired, and London took 
Heniy Wise into partnership, Johnson^ says this occurred in 
1694, but Gibson in 1691 describes the nursery as " Brompton 
Park garden, belonging to Mr. London and Mr. Wise." So it 
does not seem as if the original four were many years together. 
These two gardeners became very famous, not only for their 
horticulture at Brompton, but for the gardens they designed all 
over the kingdom. London was made Superintendent of the 
Royal Gardens, and a Page of the Backstairs to Queen Mary. 
Besides the work they did for the King at Kensington, they 
carried out considerable alterations at Hampton Court. One 
rather strange piece of work undertaken there was the trans- 
planting of one of the rows of lime-trees which formed the 
avenue by the semicircular canal. The trees on the northern 
bank were taken up and replanted on the south of what had 
been the most southern row. " Four hundred and three large 
lime trees y*" dimensions of them from 4 6'" to 3^', the charge 
of taking up these trees, bringing them to the place, digging 
holes of 10 or 12 feet diameter, carting 5 loades of earth to each 
tree one with another, with all charges los. per tree, £201. 10." 
This removal took place some thirty years after the trees had 
been planted."* Other changes were made in the " Mount 
Garden " and the " Privy Garden," " Queen Mary's Bower," 
of pleached elms, was planted, the old orchard turned into a 
wilderness, the terrace along the river was made, and probably 
the maze was laid out about the same time. Wise also planned 
the " Broad walk " which runs all along the front of the palace 
between it and the fountain garden.^ Blenheim Garden was 
another of their great undertakings, and they were three years 
in finishing it. A fine specimen of their style is still to be 

^ Switzer, Ichnographia rustica, 171 8. ^ Ihid. 

^ History of English Gardening, 1829, p. 123. * See p. 189. 

^ In the estimate for the work, the walk was to cost £6^0 13s., and the 
turfing of the sides and planting and making the borders £^90 los. and 
;^2io respectively {Treasury Papers, Ixiii., 48, etc.). 



GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 211 

seen at Melbourne in Derbyshire. The gardens of Sir Richard 
Child, at Wanstead in Essex, of Bushey Park, of Cranborne, 
and of Castle Howard, were some of their other works ; at the 
last-mentioned place Switzer says they reached " the highest 
pitch that Natural and Pohte gardening can ever arrive to." 
On the accession of Queen Anne, Wise was given the care of 
the Royal Gardens, and London confined himself chiefly to 
work in the country. He passed his time going a round of 
great gardens, frequently, it is said, riding a distance of fifty 
to sixty miles a day in the course of his business. 

Moses Cook, one of the original partners, published a work on 
forest-trees, but London and Wise were the popular writers, as 
well as designers, of the firm. They translated two works from 
the French — The Complete Gardener, from Jean de la Quintinye 
(first edition, 1699), and The Retired Gardener, from Louis Liger, 
with The Solitary Gardener, from Le Gentil. They added 
copious notes from their own experience ; the information is 
all conveyed in the form of question and answer between a 
gentleman about to purchase a seat in the country, and " taste 
the Sweets of Country Life," and a gardener. The gentleman 
asks such questions as, " Suppose I have some cases sent me 
from abroad . . . when I receive them my ground is lock'd up 
by a frost . . . what must I do with them ?" Gardener : " Upon 
Receipt of your trees, which I suppose sent in cases with moss 
laid round the roots . . . you must keep 'em in a cellar till your 
ground is capable of receiving 'em. . . . Take your roots out 
of the cases, and trim their roots. . . . After steep the roots 
in water for a Day, and then set them. ... If you observe 
this rule you won't lose one of your Trees, tho' they have 
been out of the ground for three or four months together." 
London and Wise's experience follows, and is rather contra- 
dictory.: " We had some peaches grafted on Almond's Stocks 
from France, in 1698 . . . which were three months out of the 
ground, notwithstanding all requisite care ... we could not 
save ten trees out of the whole hundred." In another chapter 
it is recommended, in sending layers and slips from abroad, 
to rub them first with honey, and then cover in damp moss, 
or stick them into " a piece of Potter's Earth tempered with 
honey," and wrap round with moss. In this work the growing 

14 — 2 



212 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

of mushrooms artificially is recommended. The process, a 
very lengthy one, of preparing the beds, is described, which 
took nearly a year to complete, Jean de la Quintinye's work 
is confined to fruit culture, and he is especially minute in 
describing the correct pruning of fruit-trees, standards, and 
espaliers and wall-fruit. The " History and Origin of Flowers," 
which forms a large part of The Retired Gardener, is a disap- 
pointing title, as it is merely a collection of the most fantastical 
myths and legends, such as the origin of the foxglove. Juno, 
working one day, lost her thimble. Jove, to pacify her, said 
he had turned it into a fiower, and accordingly up came a 
foxglove. Ornithogalum was a spoilt child, fed only on white 
of egg, till he grew feeble and was dying, so Venus, pitying him, 
turned him into the flower which bears his name — and many 
other such stories. London and Wise give a quaint list of how 
some plants are propagated, or are " vivacious and lasting, 
which are commonly grown in our flower gardens." Anemo- 
nies are vivacious by their fangs, Asphodils by their tubers. 
Auriculas, Columbine, Gillyflowers, Grenadil or Passion-flower, 
Lavender, Scabious, Sunflower, Thyme, and the like, by their 
roots ; Crown Imperials by the suckers produced from their 
roots. Ranunculus by their claws. Day-lily by its bulb, Daisy and 
Sea-thrift by their tufts. Tuberose by its suckers, and so on. 
k The English Gardener, by Leonard Meager, was also a popular 
book, and went through several editions. But little notice has 
been taken of the author, who was much more old-fashioned 
than his contemporaries. This book, in a quiet way, gives a 
great deal of practical information about fruit and kitchen 
gardening, and his " Catalogue of Flowers," " such as are only 
for ornament in their places where they grow, or for nose-gays," 
reminds the reader more of Parkinson than of Evelyn or London 
and Wise. He calls the flowers by their homely English names 
— such as Coventry Bell flowers [Campanula medium), Melan- 
choly Gentlemen [Hesperis tristis), Goat's Rue [Galega officin- 
alis). None-such, or flower of Bristol [Lychnis chalcedonica) , and 
King's Spear, yellow and white [A sphodelus) . Meager, on the 
title-page of the 1688 edition of his book, says he had been 
" Thirty years a Practitioner in the Art of Gardening." From 
the dedication, it appears that for many years he was gardener 



GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 213 

to Philip Hollman, of Warkworth, in the county of Northamp- 
ton. The Hollmans were an old county family, and Philip, 
who died in 1669, seems to have encouraged Meager in his work, 
as indeed Meager adds he assisted all his " other servants that 
had any inclination or endeavour to the Practise of Good 
Husbandry." Meager describes a type of quiet, old-fashioned, 
" neatly-ordered " gardens, many of which existed throughout 
England. The quaint view of Netherton, in Devon, is from a 
sketch made by Edmond Prideaux, about 1712, of a garden of 
this kind. Coryton Park,^ in Devonshire, is a good example 
still existing. It was laid out about 1680, and when alterations 
were made in 1756, the old garden was left as a kitchen-garden, 
and is still untouched. The old wall, which divides the upper 
or new from the lower or older garden, is of a quaint zigzag 
form ; the simple lines of the rest of the garden might have been 
taken from Meager's book. A path all round, two large square 
parterres, two smaller ones, with two corners curved to allow 
room for a path round a pond and fountain, and across the 
centre of each plat, a clipped yew-hedge following the same 
curve, and terminating at the edge of the gravel path \\dth a 
cypress-tree, two statues, a sundial, and opposite the fountain 
against the outer wall, an old garden house or orangery — such 
is the composition of the design. 

This kind of plan was already becoming old-fashioned, and 
the tendency was to make larger gardens than could be kept up 
in a formal style. Sir Wilham Temple, in 1685, saw the danger 
when he wrote : " As to the size of the garden which will perhaps 
in time grow extravagant among us, I think from four or five to 
seven acres is as much as any gentleman need design." His 
own garden at Sheen was not large, but beautifully kept ; of 
this Evelyn wrote in 1688 : " The wall fruit trees are most 
exquisitely nail'd and train'd, far better than I ever noted." 
His " Retreat " later in life in Surrey he called Moor Park after 
the favourite garden of his youth. Moor Park, in Hertfordshire, 
which he describes so dehghtfully, as it was, he says, " the 
perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw."^ At the new Moor 

^ Belonging to Rev. Marwood Tucker. 

^ Sir Wm. Temple, Upon the Garden of Epicttrus, or of Gardening in 
the Year 1685, printed in his Miscellaneous Works. 



214 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Park he laid out a garden in the Dutch style. It is not to be 
wondered at, that the statesman who negotiated the Triple 
AUiance should prefer the taste of the Netherlands to that of 
France, but he was large-minded enough to get what was good 
from France also. He prided himself on having introduced 
four new sorts of grapes into England : (i) The " Arboyse from 
Franche Compte, which is a small white grape ... it agrees 
well with our climate ... it is the most delicious of all grapes 
that are not muscat. (2) The Burgundy, which is a grizelin, 
or pale red, and of all others surest to ripen in our climate, so 
that I have never known them to fail one summer these 15 
years, when all others have ; and have had it very good upon 
an east wall. (3) A Black Muscat, which is called the Dowager, 
and ripens as well as the common white grape. (4) The 
Grizelin Frontignac, the noblest of all grapes I ever ate in 
England, but it requires the hottest wall and the sharpest 
gravel, and must be favoured by the summer too, to be very 
good."^ Unlike the proud possessor of the " Tulipe noire," or 
Alphonse Karr's enthusiastic old savants,^ who fought over a 
Buddlea, Temple was very generous in distributing the vines 
he introduced, for he writes : " I ever thought of all things of 
this kind the commoner they are made the better." 

Temple turned his attention chiefly to fruit culture. Of 
flowers he says : " I only pleased myself with seeing or smelling 
them, and not troubled myself with the care, which is more the 
ladies' part than the man's." Perhaps he left the floral part of 
his garden to his charming wife, Dorothy Osborne. In her 
delightfully fresh and witty love-letters to Temple during the 
long years of their engagement, there is one reference which is 
enough to show that she, too, took an interest in gardening. She 
writes, in 1654, of Sir Samuel Luke, a neighbour of hers at 
Chick Sands, in Bedfordshire : " But of late I know not how 
Sir Sam has grown so kind as to send to me for some things 
he desired out of this garden, and withal made the offer of 
what was in his, which I had reason to take for a high favour, 
for he is a nice florist." 

^ This grape is now rarely seen. There is a plant (grown under glass) 
at Berwick, near Shrewsbury. 
2 Auiour de mon Jardin. 



GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 215 

The well-known gardener John Rose also helped to encourage 
grape-growing by distributing vines, and wrote a work entitled 
The English Vineyard Vindicated. He offered to "all that 
desire it sets and plants of all the best vines sufficiently tried 
in our soil and climate at reasonable prices."^ And John 
Beale, following his example, used to offer to give plants of 
vines to " cottagers," but they generally answered " churlishly 
that they would not be troubled with grapes " ; but when he 
explained that in a few years their grapes would fetch a good 
price in the markets, "they were soon of a more thankful 
mind." 

In his Diary on June loth, 1658, Evelyn made the following 
entry : " I went to see y^ medical garden at Westminster well 
stored with plants under Morgan, a very skilful botanist." 
Hugh Morgan is twice mentioned by Johnson, in his edition 
of Gerard's Herbal, as " The Queen's Apothecary," and " a 
curious conserver of rare simples," and he notices a large 
specimen of the " Lote or Nettle " tree, growing in Morgan's 
garden, near " Coleman Street, in London." This Morgan was 
probably the same man whose garden at Westminster Evelyn 
visited, but how long he kept up this garden is uncertain.^ 
When a physic-garden in Westminster, presumably this one, 
was bought by the Apothecaries' Company, in June, 1676, it 
was in other hands, as the Company bought the lease from 
Mrs. Gape, with the liberty of moving the plants to their 
Chelsea Garden.^ The Physic Garden at Chelsea was founded 
in 1673,* and after a few years entirely superseded the one at 
Westminster. The lease of the land at Chelsea from Charles 
Cheyne (afterwards Lord Cheyne) was signed August 29th, 
1673, for a term of sixty-one years, the rent £5 per annum, and 
the following year a wall was built round the garden. The first 
gardener was Piggott, who was succeeded in 1677 by Richard 
Pratt. These gardeners were given £30 a year, and their suc- 
cessor, John Watts, 1679, received ;^50. The garden was 

^ Letter concerning Orchards and Vineyards, John Beale, 1676. 

2 " Master Morgan the gardiner at Westminster " and " Dr. How, one 
of the Masters of the Physick Garden at Westminster," are mentioned 
by W. Coles in his Art of Simpling, 1657. 

^ Faulkner's Chelsea, vol. ii., pp. 174-176. 

* History of the Apothecary's Garden, by Henry Field, 1820. 



2i6 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

managed by a committee of twenty-one assistants, thirty livery- 
men, and twenty yeomanry. They built a greenhouse which 
cost them ;^I38 in 1680. Two years after, Dr. Hermann of Ley- 
den visited the garden and offered to exchange some plants. 
To effect this. Watts was sent over to Holland. In 1685 the 
expenses of the garden, besides Watts's salary, reached £130, so 
the Company, unable to carry on the garden at that rate, ar- 
ranged to give Watts ;^ioo a year, out of which he was to keep 
up the garden, and he was allowed to sell fruit and plants. The 
same sort of arrangement was afterwards made with his suc- 
cessor, Doody, a good botanist, and famous collector of native 
plants, chiefly cryptograms, who was given the post in 1693. 
In 1722 Sir Hans Sloane, having acquired land at Chelsea which 
included the garden, gave the site to the Apothecaries' Company 
on condition that it was always to be a Physic Garden, and 
PhiHp Miller was made the curator. Another condition of Sir 
Hans Sloane's was, that the Company should present fifty new 
plants annually to the Royal Society (of which he was Presi- 
dent) until they had given two thousand. They, however, con- 
tinued the annual gift until 1773, and gave in all 2,550 species. 
Under Philip Miller's care the garden increased in importance, 
and many able curators succeeded him. After the middle of 
last century it was much neglected by the Apothecaries' Com- 
pany until 1898, when the Charity Commissioners handed it 
over to a board of management appointed by the London 
Parochial Charities and several learned societies, to be main- 
tained for scientific and educational purposes. Thus once more 
the Physic Garden is fulfilling the wishes of its founder. 

Sir Hans Sloane had for many years taken a lively interest 
in the garden. In 1684 he wrote Ray an account of a visit 
which he paid to it.^ " I was the other day at Chelsea, and find 
that the artifices used by Mr. Watts have been very effectual for 
the Preservation of his plants, insomuch that this severe winter 
has scarce killed any of his fine plants. One thing I much 
wonder to see Cedrus Montis Libani . . . should thrive so well, 
as without pot or green House, to be able to propagate itself 
by Layers this spring. Seeds sown last Autumn have as yet 
thriven very well." There were four cedars planted in 1683, 
^ Ray's Philosophical Letters, 1718. 







PHYSIC GARDEN, CHELSEA (iN 1894). 



To face page 216. 



GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 217 

and two were flourishing in 1820, and one remained until 
1904.^ Before this visit to the garden, he must have paid many 
others, as he made most of his botanical studies there, and was 
encouraged and assisted by Ray. Sloane (born 1660) had been 
abroad and studied medicine at Montpelier, where a Botanical 
Garden had existed since 1598. Long years before he con- 
veyed the land to the apothecaries he was famous for his 
assiduous studies of Natural History. The first volume of his 
great work on Jamaica and the West Indies was published in 
1707. He was in Jamaica as physician to the Duke of Albemarle, 
the Governor, who died there suddenly, and Sloane returned to 
England, having in fifteen months collected a large number of 
curiosities, and no less than eight hundred species of plants. 
He lived at Chelsea all the latter part of his life, and died there 
in 1752. His fame as a naturalist is scarcely less than as 
a physician. The great Linnaeus as a young man came to 
England to see him in 1736. On every occasion he was the 
encourager and friend of gardeners, of which the following letter 
is an example : 

Sir Henry Goodricke to Sir Hans Sloane. Ribstan, near 
Boroughhridge, in Yorkshire, 'Ly\%. 

Sir, 

The civilitys I have received from you do incourage 
me to give the trouble of a letter, and knowing you to be one 
who loves to incourage curiosity makes me hope that the 
subject of my letter won't be so disagreable to you as to 
another. It is to desire of you that if among your rarities you 
have any num.ber of seeds, nuts or kernells of foreign and rare 
trees especially those that are hardy I shall verily thankfully 
pay for 'em, my pleasure being to raise such things in hot beds 
and preserve 'em with care ; and I would not rob you of any 
but what you have so many as you may readily spare a part 
to one who will as readily supply you again when any accident 

^ This tree was almost dead when the new management took over 
the garden in 1898, and their care could not save it. It became infested 
with a fungus, which was rapidly spreading to other trees, and had to 
be cut down in March, 1904. I give a more full account of the history 
of the garden and these cedar trees in London Parks and Gardens, 
Constable, 1907, 



2i8 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

happens to yours, which I beheve y" are more subject to near 
London than we are, here where I myself take the chief care 
of my curious trees. I have not yet been able to procure a 
tree of the true lotus [Zizyphus lotus), nor the larch tree, both 
which Mr. Evelyn saj^s grow well in our climate, and may be 
raised from seed ; these seeds and any other exotics I doubt not 
to raise, I mean trees, for smaller plants are too numerous for 
me to attend ; if you could procure me a small tree of each of 
those kinds I w^ repay you with thanks, being S' y"^ obliged 
and humble servant, 

H. GOODRICKE. 

There are three or four very fine larch trees in the grounds at 
Ribston now, which are probably the very ones sent in answer 
to this appeal. Sir Henry Goodricke was the introducer of the 
well-known Ribston pippin. He had three pippins sent him 
from Normandy about the year 1707 ; one of them grew up, and 
was the original Ribston Pippin tree ; it was blown down in 
1839, but a sucker from the root is now a fair-sized tree, and 
still bears occasional fruit. 

Before quitting the period under review, some mention must 
be made of the decorative lead and iron work which served as 
embellishments to the gardens of this date. Lead vases and 
statues continued to be placed as ornaments in vistas or against 
backgrounds of cut yews, and where they have remained in 
situ add greatly to the charm of existing old gardens. Although 
quantities have perished, many are now coming to light, and 
are eagerly sought for by collectors to adorn the modern formal 
garden. The statues are usually rather rough in workman- 
ship, yet many are artistic and graceful. The most typical 
subjects were the seasons, and many examples of these remain ; 
or Cupids, such as the charming groups at Melbourne, in 
Derbyshire ; or shepherdesses or shepherds, as at Canons 
Ashby. Sometimes copies from the antique or other classical 
figures were chosen — for example, the " Mercurv " at Mel- 
bourne, or the " cymbal player " at Castle Hill, Devonshire. 
Portrait statues were more rare, and there are few as fine as the 
first Duke of Marlborough and the Prince Eugene, now at 
Glemham, in Suffolk. 



GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 219 

It is not known who these spirited portraits are by ; they 

probably date from about the year 1700, so are rather early for 

the work of Rysbrack (1693-1770) or Roubihac (1695-1762). 

Most of the makers of these lead statues came from abroad. 

One founder was Peter Scheemakers, who migrated from 

Antwerp to London about 1735, and his partner was Laurent 

Delvaux. By far the most important of the workers in lead 

was John, or Jan, Van Nost, a Dutch sculptor, who had a studio 

in Piccadilly. He seems to have been assisted by Charpentiere, 

and also had a son who did similar work. The Piccadilly 

business was carried on after Jan Van Nost's death by John 

Cheere, whose brother. Sir Henry, executed several of the 

monuments in Westminster Abbey. Sir Henry was probably 

the artist, and supplied the designs, while John was the manager 

and owner of the foundry. A large proportion of the known 

lead work issued from Van Nost's workshop, and the Melbourne 

ornaments were cast there. The subjects were not always 

original, and copies of Giovanni de Bologna were frequent. The 

kneeling figure of a blackamoor was a favourite design, and also 

an Asiatic slave in the same attitude. At Melbourne they hold 

a stone slab, on which rests a lead vase. In the replicas at 

Glemham the negro's head supports a sundial bearing the 

arms of Elihu Yale (1649-172 1), the founder of Yale University 

in the United States, whose daughter married Dudley North, of 

Glemham. More than half a dozen other examples of this 

figure exist, the best known being the sundial, formerly in 

Clement's Inn, and now in the Inner Temple Garden. Another 

fine specimen of lead work near London is the fountain with a 

Cupid and swans at Charlton, erected by Sir William Langhorne 

at the end of the seventeenth century. Caius Gabriel Gibber, a 

native of Holstein, was employed for the statues, vases, and 

fountains at Chatsworth from 1687 to 1691. The ironwork there 

was done by Jean Tijou, a Frenchman, who was the most 

prominent artist of designs for ironwork in England after the 

Restoration. Some of his best work is to be seen in Wren's 

buildings, and he was busy at St. Paul's from 1693 to 171 1, and 

began work at Hampton Court in 1689, and was often associated 

with Talman and Vanbrugh. Most of the finest garden-gates 

throughout the kingdom were from his designs, and many of 



220 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

the drawings made by him " for several persons of quality " 
were published in a volume in 1693.^ 

The designs for the ironwork for all the various gates, etc., at 
Burley-on-the-Hill are supposed to have been supplied by 
Tijou, but they were executed by Joshua Lord, who was either 
his pupil or worked under him. The bill for the gates of the 
entrance to the forecourt, dated 1700, is extant, and runs as 
follows : " Mr. Joshua Lord by the Iron Gates at the Porter's 
Lodge." " They were supposed to weigh 36 cwts., but when 
bought they weighed 40 cwt. 3 qr. 7 lbs. of iron at 2d. per lb., 
in all £96 17s. 6d." When the porter's lodge was pulled down 
by Repton's advice^ these gates were left, and they measure 
II feet 10 inches in height, the central gate being 11 feet 
4 inches wide, and the two bridle-gates 5 feet 7 inches each, 

^ With French and Enghsh title, A New Book of Drawings Invented 
and Designed by John Tijou, London, 1693. 
^ See p. 2591 



CHAPTER XI 

DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 

" Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
Of stateliest view. ..." 

Milton : Paradise Lo^t. 

" Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower. 
Herbs, flowers and fruits. . , ." 

Thomson : Seasons. 

THE gardeners who followed London and Wise as designers, 
as well as cultivators and planters, were Stephen Switzer, 
and after him Bridgeman. These men were busy at a time 
when formal gardening was on the wane. It was in the days of 
Queen Anne that Addison and Pope first ridiculed the old style, 
and sought to bring in the fashion of " copying Nature." But 
the reaction and destruction of old gardens did not take place 
till later, when the theories they advanced had had time to 
spread. There is no lack of views and designs of gardens 
during this period. They are to be found in County Histories, 
such as Plot's Staffordshire, Atkyns' Gloucester, and Dugdale's 
Warwickshire ; also in Beeverell, " Les Delices de la Grande 
Bretagne et de I'lrlande," published at Leyden in 1707, in 
Britannia Illustrata, 1709, with a large series of views by 
Kip, and in other similar works. If the authors had foreseen 
the annihilation that was to befall so many gardens, they could 
hardly have more carefully preserved their designs. But these 
pictures are mostly taken from some imaginary point, and give 
a bird's-eye view of house, garden, and surrounding landscape, 
in a conventional plan, regardless of perspective. Faithful 
representations though they may be in many cases, the formal 
garden, as they show it, has lost all its poetry ; the pale tints 
of the tender shoots of the beech hedge in spring, the soft 

221 



222 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

green of the sheltering yews in winter, the secluded alley, or the 
woodbine-covered arbour, have no charm when set down in 
these stiff Knes of black and white. The garden at Ingestre was 
described by a traveller, John Loveday, of Caversham, in 1732. 
The house, he says, is situated on the side of a hill, " the 
Gardens higher. They are large — laid out into the grandest 
walks between the stateliest Trees imaginable. Hares in abun- 
dance about the woody Garden, a Building erecting in the 
higher part for a Prospect . . . which together with the Church 
is represented in Plot p. 299." The picture Loveday refers to 
is here reproduced, and illustrates in a striking manner how 
inadequate these designs are to convey any idea of the beauties 
of the originals. 

It has been said that it was the decadence of art in the 
formal style which brought about its own fall, but it is difficult 
to imagine anything more charming than some of the gardens 
of the time of Queen Anne. Their chief characteristic was 
the prevalence of long walks between cut trees, not exactly 
hedges, but trees chpped up to a certain height, and allowed 
to feather naturally at the top. A most curious example of this 
is to be seen at Down Hall, in Essex, The trees are cut to the 
height of sixty or seventy feet ; the path between them is 
about fifteen feet wide, and seven hundred and eighty long, 
and closes with a view of Hatfield Broad Oak at the end. 
This garden was made when the place belonged conjointly to 
Prior, the poet, and Harley, Lord Oxford.^ Prior wrote a 
humorous poem on the occasion of his first visit to " Derry 
down down, hey derry down," as he called it. He expected to 
find there 

"... Gardens so stately, and arbours so thick, 
A portal of stone, and a fabric of brick." 

But on reaching his destination, the poet exclaimed to his 
friend : 

" O Morley, O Morley ! if that be a hall. 
The fame with the building will suddenly fall." 

To which he received the answer : 

" I show'd you Down Hall ; did you look for Versailles ?" 

^ Now the property of Capt. Horace W. Calverly. 




"CASHIOBURY, THE SEAT OF THE RT. IIONBLE. THE EARLE OF ESSEX IN 
HARTFORDSHIEE." 

Frcin ail engraving by Kip. {Sec f. i8o.) 



r 



■$%%-. 1 ' 










INGESTRE, THE SEAT OF LORD VISCOUNT CHETWYND. 
From Plot's '^Staffordshire." First Edition, 16S6. 



To face page 222. 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 223 

Prior lived here for many years, and designed new gardens, 
and these alterations, which Lord Oxford carried out, included 
the present principal garden, with box hedges in the Dutch 
style, and the long wall of clipped hornbeams. Another 
charming example is at Bramham, in Yorkshire.^ The ground- 
plan of the garden is like any figured in Switzer's books. The 
house was burnt many years ago, and never restored, but 
the gardens have been kept up in their original state, as they 
were laid out by Mr. Benson. He was Ambassador to Spain, 
and Queen Anne gave him a grant of land on Bramham Moor. 
After he had built a house and made gardens round it, she 
paid him a visit there, and created him Lord Bingley. Along 
the house is a terrace, and in front of it a grass parterre. From 
thence are seen vistas through the beech and hornbeam woods 
beyond. From the northern end of the terrace a straight walk 
between high-cut hedges runs westward, and leads at once 
into the most entrancing maze of long walks diverging from 
each other at regular angles. At the end of some there is a 
small summer-house, a seat, or statue, or monument. From 
the ends of the walks furthest from the centre the view ranges 
over the open country beyond. The garden stands above the 
level of the park, therefore the terrace-wall which divides 
them has all the effect of a sunk fence. But the most dehghtful 
part, perhaps, is where the avenues are wider, where the walks 
skirt the edge of the canal, and the tall trees are reflected in 
its silent waters. There is an open space laid out as a " French 
garden." In this case it is an oval slope of grass, with large 
flower-beds in a regular pattern ; a summer-house overlooks 
this garden, and to the back of the summer-house there is a 
broad bowhng-green, surrounded by trees, among which are the 
walks. At the opposite end of the oval garden there is a basin 
and " cascade," and a short distance from this point the path 
rejoins, at its southern end, the terrace which runs in front of the 
house. The effect of this garden at Bramham on a fine autumn 
day, with the slanting beams of the evening sun seen through 
the long vistas shining on the golden-brown foliage of the trees, 
is trulybeautiful, and leaves an impression never to be forgotten. 
There is a contemporary description of such a garden in a 
^ Belonging to Mr. Lane Fox. 



224 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

letter written by Lord Percival to his brother-in-law, Daniel 
Dering.^ It is dated from Oxford, August 9th, 1724 : 

" Friday morning left Becconsfield ; we went half a mile out 
of our way to see Hall Barn,^ Mr. Waller's house — a London Box 
if I may so call a house of 7 windows every way. He was gone a 
hunting, so we did not go into the house, which promised nothing 
extraordinary, but we spent a full hour and half in viewing the 
gardens, which you will think are fine, when I tell you they 
put us in mind of those at Versailles, He has 80 acres in garden 
and wood, but the last is so managed as justly to be counted 
part of the former. From the parterre you have terraces and 
gravelled walks that lead up to and quite thro' the wood, in 
which several lesser ones cross the principal one, of different 
breadths, but all well gravelled and for the most part green 
sodded on the sides. The wood consists of tall beech trees and 
thick underwood, at least 30 foot high. The narrow winding 
walks and paths cut in it are innumerable ; a woman in full 
health cannot walk them all, for which reason my wife was 
carry'd in a Windsor chair like those at Versailles, by which 
means she lost nothing worth seeing. The walks are terminated 
by Ha-hah's, over which you see a fine country and variety of 
prospects every time you come to the extremity of the close 
winding walks that shut out the sun. Versailles has indeed the 
advantage in fountains, for there is not one in all this garden ; 
but there are two very noble pieces of water full of fish, and 
handsomely planted and terraced on the sides. In one part of 
the wood, and in a deep bottom, is a place to which one descends 
with horrour, for it seems the residence of some draggon ; but 
there shines a gleam of light thro' the high wood that surrounds 
and shades it, which recovers the spirits, and makes you sensible 
a draggon would seek some place still more retired. This place 
may be call'd the Temple of Pan or Silvanus, consisting of 
several apartments, arches, corridores, &c., composed of high 
thriving ews cut very artfully. In the centre of the inner circle 
or court, if I may call it so, stands the figure of a guilt satyr on 
a stone pedestal. ... I pass over the bowling-green, and large 
plantations about the house, which are but young, but I must 

^ MS. belonging to Lord Egmont. 

2 Now the property of Lord Burnham. 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 225 

not forget a bench or seat of the famous Edmond Waller's the 
Poet, which is so reverenced that, old as it is, it is never to be 
removed, but constantly repaired, like Sir Francis Drake's 
ship. The present Waller is his grandson. All this fine 
Improvement is made by himself or Aisleby, his father-in-law, 
who had this house and the lands about it, in right of his wife's 
joynture, but gave it up in the South Sea year to his Son-in- 
law. There is a great deal more still to be done, which will 
cost a prodigious sum, but this gentleman by marriage, South 
Sea and his Paternal Estate [is able] to do what he pleases." 
After such a charming description it is pleasing to find that Hall 
Barn has been but little altered ; and a seat bearing the poet's 
name remains to this day. 

Lord Percival was a capital correspondent, and some other 
letters to Daniel Dering give his impressions of the gardens 
he saw on his tour about England in 1723, thus : " To Wickham, 
7 miles to Lord Shelbum's [we thought] he would by this time 
have made some tolerable garden or cut fine walks in the 
woods that cover the hills about him, but we were entirely 
disappointed ; the wood is neglected ; the gardens which are 
but 4 acres, without tast and neglected too, and the house 
fourty times worse than Lady Bidulf's on blackheath." "Col. 
Tyrrel's called Shotover (near Oxford) about two miles [farther 
on] . . . There is plenty of wood and water about the house, 
and both brought into the circuit of the garden, with regularity 
and bewty. A large octogon bason on the west, and two 
canals on the east ; the walks, parterres, terraces, and avenues 
are agreably separated by groves of reverend oak, beech and 
elm trees ; in a word, his garden is already compleated and yet 
he still goes on to gratify his good tast." Lord Percival was 
evidently a friend of Sir Wilham Temple's nephew, as he refers 
to him frequently in other letters. It is interesting to follow 
the history of the garden at Moor Park. The following letter is 
dated August 25th, 1724 : " Called on Jack Temple who fives 
a mile from Farnham. ... It was purchased by the famous 
Sir WilHam Temple, who took great defight in it, and made part 
of the garden, but this gentleman, his nephew, has greatly 
added to it, and rendered it indeed a very pleasant seat. He 
has the advantage of a branch of the River Wye, which is 

15 



226 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

brought into the midst of his garden, and supply's two pretty 
cascades. In the Parterre are 4 Antique Statues a young 
Papyrius and his companion a Bacchus, and Diana." 

The same year Lord Percival went into Norfolk and Suffolk. 
He visited Euston, which he thus describes : " Neither are the 
gardens as yet considerable, being but young, and his trees not 
well grown. He has a very fine canal, that confines one side, 
and at the end of his gravel walk is a large bason with a lake 
beyond it."^ And Lord Oxford's place, " Chipman, 3 miles 
north of Newmarket. The gardens are 50 acres, and have 
a good deal of variety, a fine bowling-green, very high hedge- 
rows cut into vistos, long tracts and walks, from which you 
see several miles into the country through well-grown avenues. 
There is a canal in the shape of a T 1,000 foot long, and 
70 broad." This, again, might be a description of the garden 
still existing at Bramham, or of one of Switzer's plans. Belton 
is another charming example of a garden of about this date 
which, although somewhat altered, still retains several features 
observable on these plans. 

Switzer was a pupil of London and Wise, and avowed himself 
an admirer of Pope's ideas on gardens. He gives his views 
fully in The Nobleman s, Gentleman's and Gardener's Recreation, 
in 1715, published again with additions as Ichnographia Rustica, 
in 1718, " by which title is meant the general Designing and 
Distributing of County Seats into gardens woods Parks Pad- 
docks &c. : which I therefore call forest, or in more easie stile 
Rural gardening." Here is a beginning of the end of Formal 
Gardening. This " Le grand Manier," he goes on to say, is 
" oppos'd to those crimping, diminutive and wretched Per- 
formances we every where meet with. . . . The top of these 
designs being in dipt plants, Flowers, and other trifling Deco- 
rations ... fit only for httle Town gardens, and not for the 
expansive Tracts of the Country." In another place,^ he goes 
still further, and says his work is for the " Embellishment of 
the whole Estate." The grounds to be " handsomely divided 
by Avenues and Hedges . . . little walks and purhng streams 
. . . and why is not a level easy walk of gravel or sand shaded 
over with Trees and running thro' a corn field or Pasture 
^ See illustration. ^ Edition of 1718. 




HALL BARN. 
Laid out in the I'eigii of George I. 



To face page 226. 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 227 

ground as pleasing as the largest walk in the most magnificent 
garden one can think of ? and why are not little gardens and 
Basons of water as useful and surprising (and indeed why not 
more so) at some considerable Distance from the Mansion 
House as they are near it ?" The gardens I have quoted above, 
and his own plans, however, do not go as far as admitting 
cornfields, but the garden had ceased to be an enclosure, and 
was alread}^ encroaching on the park and surrounding country. 
The movement in its beginning was a good one, especially this 
casting off some of the unnatural formality and stiffness that 
gardens of the Dutch type had reached. On the other hand, 
if French gardens were copied, a larger space to work upon was 
needed, and much more expense involved ; so gradually the 
natural surroundings were made use of, to help out the design, 
and thus, if possible, to cut down the cost. 

I do not think that the pioneers of the landscape style 
can be blamed for the abuse of it a few years later ; when the 
real flower-garden, " the terrestrial Paradise " of flowers, was 
gradually banished, and instead of a garden encroaching on 
a park, the park came up to the house, and the flower garden 
nearly disappeared. People were tiring of " Topiary " work, 
which had so long been popular. Instead of cut hedges, alleys, 
arbours, and a few standard trees, gardens were overcrowded 
with a confusion of cut bushes, and it is not surprising that any- 
one with a love of the beauties of Nature, as she appears 
in woods and fields, should long to see, at any rate, an occa- 
sional tree left to grow in its own wild and graceful way. " Our 
British gardeners," wrote Addison,^ " instead of humouring 
Nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our Trees 
rise in Cones, Globes, and Pyramids. We see the marks of the 
scissars upon every Plant and Bush. I do not know whether I 
am singular in my Opinion, but, for my own part, I would rather 
look upon a tree in all its Luxuriancy and Diffusion of Boughs 
and Branches, than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a 
Mathematical Figure ; and cannot but fancy that an Orchard 
in Flower looks infinitely more dehghtful than all the Httle 
Labyrinths of the most finished Parterre." 

The next year (1713) Pope followed up this appeal for natural 
^ Spectator, 414, June 25th, 1712. 

15—2 



228 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

gardens in the Guardian, with some more cutting remarks on the 
fashion of " verdant sculpture." He supposes that " an emi- 
nent town gardiner "... who has " arrived to such perfection, 
that he cuts family pieces of men, women, or children in trees," 
has sent him his catalogue of greens for sale. A most witty 
list of trees follows. Among them are " Adam and Eve in 
yew, Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of know- 
ledge in the great storm ; Eve and the Serpent, very flourishing. 
St. George in box, his arm scarce long enough, but will be in 
condition to stick the dragon by next April ; A green dragon of 
the same, with a tail of ground-ivy for the present. (N.B. — 
These two not to be sold separately.) Divers eminent modern 
poets in bays, somewhat blighted, to be disposed of a penny- 
worth. A quickset hog, shot up into a porcupine, by its being 
forgot a week in rainy weather." In the beginning of the Essay 
from which the above is taken, Pope quotes Homer's description 
of the garden of Alcinous, in the Odyssey, and gives his own 
translation of the passage : 

" Close to the gates a spacious garden lies, 
From storms defended and inclement skies ; 
Four acres was the allotted space of ground, 
Fenc'd with a green inclosure all around. 
-^ Tall thriving trees confess the fruitful mold. 

The red'ning apple ripens here to gold. 

Beds of all various herbs, for ever green. 
In beauteous order terminate the scene." 

If such was Pope's ideal garden, it had little in common with 
the landscape style he helped so much to bring in. " How 
contrary to this simplicit}^ is the modern practice of gardening !" 
he continues. " We seem to make it our study to recede from 
Nature, not only in the various tonsure of greens into the most 
regular and formal shapes, but even in monstrous attempts 
beyond the reach of the art itself. We run into sculpture, and 
are yet better pleased to have our trees in the most awkward 
figures of men and animals, than in the most regular of their 
own." No one, even the most ardent advocate of the formal 
garden, can deny that Pope and Addison had much right on 
their side. But there was no reason to rush to the other 




^ 




!z Si] 











n 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 229 

extreme, and have no arrangement, or no straight Hnes of any 
sort, in a garden. Two years later Pope settled at Twickenham, 
and his Villa there, far from being in the simple style he 
admired, became a complicated piece of mimicry of rural 
scenery of all sorts. He took infinite pains in planning and 
planting. " I thank God," he wrote in a letter to a friend, 
" for every wet day and for every fog, that gives me a headache, 
but prospers my work." His famous grotto, " composed of 
marbles, spars, gems, ores, and minerals," was the amusement 
of his decHning years. It could hardly lay claim to being 
"natural," for nothing moie fantastical can be imagined, 
although in Pope's own lines to his grotto, he invites the 
stranger thus : " Approach ! Great Nature studiously behold." 

Addison lived at one time at Bilton, in Warwickshire, and 
his garden there is not in a " natural style " either. Part of 
the garden dates from 1623 ; some of it was altered early in the 
nineteenth century, but the arbour used by Addison is still 
there. It is of classical " Queen Anne " style of architecture, 
with a straight bench, facing a view of the garden, with 
nothing rustic about it. There are still, however, in the 
garden, two old cut yew arbours, also good yew and holly 
hedges. 

Bridgeman, the other designer of this date, who followed up 
the ideas of these two writers, was not himself an author like 
Switzer, so one must look at his work to judge of his ideas. 
Walpole, writing some years later, praises Bridgeman very 
highly. He was the successor to London and Wise in the 
charge of the Royal Gardens, and was, writes Walpole, " far 
more chaste " than his predecessors. " He enlarged his plans, 
disdained to make every division tally to its opposite, and 
though he still adhered much to strait walks with high dipt 
hedges, they were only his great lines ; the rest he diversified 
by wilderness, and with loose groves of oak, though still within 
surrounding hedges. I have observed in the gardens at 
Gubbins, in Hertfordshire, the seat of the late Sir Jeremy 
Sambrooke, many detached thoughts, that strongly indicate the 
dawn of modern taste. As his reformation gained footing, he 
ventured farther, and in the Royal Garden at Richmond dared 
to introduce cultivated fields, and even morsels of a forest 



230 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

appearance. But this was not till other innovators had broke 
loose too, from rigid symmetry." 

The names of several landscape-gardeners are known in 
connection with Stow, in Buckinghamshire, each in turn 
having added something to the place. The garden was looked 
upon as quite the acme of perfection by this school of garden- 
designers. Pope's lines on the principles of landscape gardening 
are summed up in the one word. Stow : 

" Still follow Sense, of ev'ry art the soul, 
Parts answ'ring parts shall slide into a whole ; 
Spontaneous beauties all around advance, 
Start ev'n from difi&culty, strike from chance, 
Nature shall join you ; time shall make it grow, 
A work to wonder at — perhaps a STOW." 

Sir Richard Temple, who died in 1697, commenced rebuilding 
the house at Stow, and his son. Lord Cobham, continued it, and 
began the gardens, which were constantly being added to until 
1755. By that time they covered a space of 500 acres. 
Bridgeman was the first designer, and after him, Kent, while 
Sir John Vanbrugh constructed several of the temples and 
monuments. In one of the numerous descriptions of Stow, a 
pyramid is specially mentioned as being the last design he 
executed :^ 

"... Ascends 
The pointed pyramid ; this, too, is thine, 
Lamented Vanbrugh ! this thy last design, 
Among the various structures, that around, 
Formed by thy hand adorn this happy ground." 

As this was the ideal garden of the period, there are several 
contemporary guides and descriptions to it published. As 
smaller places copied it, and were composed of the same sort 
of collection of temples, gardens, and vistas, it will be necessary 
to go through its varied features in detail, so I have transcribed 
in full a letter from that same delightful correspondent. Lord 
Percival, to his brother-in-law, Bering, giving his own impres- 
sions of the gardens, to which he paid a visit in 1724 :^ 

^ Stow, The Gardens of the Right Hon. Richard, Lord Viscount Cobham, 
1732. Anonymous. 
^ Manuscript belonging to the Earl of Egmont. 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 231 

" Brackley. 14 Aug : 1724 Friday night, 
7 a clock. 

" Dear Daniel, 

" Yesterday we saw Lord Cobham's house, which within 
these five years has gained the reputation of being the finest 
seat in England. . . . The gardens by reason of the good 
contrivance of the walks, seem to be three times as large as they 
are. They contain but 28 acres, yet took us up two hours. It 
is entirely new, and tho' begun but eleven years ago, is now 
almost finished. From the lower end you ascend a multitude 
of steps (but at several distances) to the parterre, and from 
thence several more to the house, which, standing high, 
commands a fine prospect. One way they can see 26 miles. 
It is impossible to give you an exact Idea of this garden, but 
we shall shortly have a graving of it. It consists of a great 
number of walks, terminated by summer houses, and heathen 
Temples of different structure, and adorned with statues cast 
from the Anticks. Here you see the Temple of Apollo, there 
a Triumphal Arch. The garden of Venus is delightful ; you 
see her standing in her Temple, at the head of a noble bason of 
water, and opposite to her an Amphitheater, with statues of 
Gods and Goddesses ; this bason is sorounded with walks and 
groves, and overlook'd from a considerable heigth by a tall 
Column of a Composite order on which stands a statue of 
Pr : George in his Robes. At the end of the gravel walk leading 
from the house, are two heathen Temples with a circle of water, 
2 acres and a quarter large. In the midst whereof is a Gulio 
or pyramid, at least 50 foot high, from the top of which it 
is designed that water shall fall, being by pipes convey'd 
thro' the heart of it. Half way up this walk is another fine 
bason, with pyramid in it 30 foot high, and nearer the house 
you meet a fountain that plays 40 foot. The cross walks end 
in vistos, arches and statues, and the private ones cut thro' 
groves are delightful. You think twenty times you have no 
more to see, and of a sudden find yourself in some new garden 
or walk, as finish'd and adorn'd as that you left. Nothing is 
more irregular in the whole, nothing more regular in the parts, 
which totally differ the one from the other. This shows my 
Lord's good tast, and his fondness to the place appears by the 



232 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

great expense he has been at. We all know how chargeable 
it is to make a garden with tast ; to make one of a sudden more 
so ; but to erect so many Summer houses, Temples, Pillars, 
Piramids, and Statues, most of fine hewn stone, the rest of 
guilded lead, would drain the richest purse, and I doubt not but 
much of his wife's great fortune has been sunk in it. The 
Pyramid at the end of one of the walks is a copy in mignature 
of the most famous one in Egypt, and the only thing of the 
kind, I think, in England. Bridgman^ laid out the ground 
and plan'd the whole, which cannot fail of recommending him 
to business. What adds to the bewty of this garden is, that 
it is not bounded by walls, but by a Ha-hah, which leaves you 
the sight of a bewtifull woody country, and makes you ignorant 
how far the high planted walks extend." 

The garden thus by means of the ha-ha was becoming merged 
in the park. In many cases the actual garden was neglected 
to carry out larger designs in the parks. The changes at 
Boughton, in the reign of George I., were typical of the 
times ; the extensive waterworks were done away with, the 
wilderness was enlarged, and many miles of avenues were 
planted. 

" Who plants like Bathurst ?" wrote Pope, and as Pope 
was a leader of fashion in planting, it may be assumed that 
Bathurst's method was characteristic of this period. It was 
not a garden he planted at Cirencester, but a park, with miles 
of avenues skilfully planned, yet all distant from the house, 
and with but little of them visible from the small garden, and 
Pope himself assisted to lay them out. He wrote to a friend 
in 1736 to say he was going to Lord Bathurst, " who will give 
me no peace unless I plan and lay the foundations of two 
Temples in his Park."^ One of these summer-houses, where 
Pope used to sit and enjoy the beauty of the planting, is where 
seven avenues diverge more than a mile from the house. A 
still finer point is two miles farther off, where ten avenues meet. 

^ Note in the margin : " Mr. Bridgman was afterwards made the 
Kings ch : Gardiner." 

^ Manuscript letter from Pope to W. Fortescue, Esq., dated August 3, 
1739. which was the property of W. B. Fortescue, Esq., Octon, Torquay. 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 233 

The same idea was carried out at Badminton, where the avenues 
extended for miles into the country, and met at a distant 
point. ^ This is all quite beyond the scope of a garden, and 
therefore beyond my subject ; but as now the time has been 
reached when, according to Walpole, " Kent leapt the fence 
and saw all nature was a garden," it was necessary to take a 
glance beyond. 

To the lovers of flowers a garden was always a garden ; under 
their protection, horticulture and botany were making steady 
progress, in spite of the new rage for merging the garden in the 
park. The workers in the practical branches of gardening were 
many. Richard Bradley, Philip Miller, Thomas Fairchild, and 
John Lawrence were among the most famous. Bradley was 
a very voluminous writer on Natural History, Gardening, and 
Botany.^ He entered into various questions concerning the 
growth of plants, the movements of the sap, and fertihzation. 
" The sap of plants," he wrote, " circulates much after the same 
manner as the Fluids do in Animal Bodies." On fertihzation 
he says he received " many hints from a gentleman of Paris and 
Mr. Samuel Moreland . . . how the pollen powder (or male 
dust) fertilizes the embryo seeds in the ovary." Probably the 
" gentleman of Paris " was Sebastien Vaillant (1669-1722), who 
wrote on the subject, and agreed with the theories first pro- 
pounded by Dr. Grew and Thomas Middleton, Ray, and others, 
regarding the sexes of plants. Samuel Moreland wrote a paper 
for the Royal Society in 1703 ; his theory varying only slightly 
from the others as to the process by which the pollen reached 
the ovary. Scientists made experiments on plants to prove 
their theories, and practical gardeners were not slow in giving 
their help. The natural result was that, before long, they 
succeeded in improving and increasing the varieties of well- 
known species. Bradley instances examples of cross fertiliza 
tion, as shown by the changes of colours in auriculas and tulips, 
and by a plant in Fairchild's garden grown from carnation seed 
fertilized by the pollen of the Sweet William. 

Fairchild's garden at Hoxton was the scene of many experi- 
ments. Bradley frequently refers to him as one of the most 

" Kip's views, see Britannia Ilhf strata, 1709. 

• New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, 1717, etc. 



234 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

skilful gardeners of his acquaintance. Fairchild was the 
author of The City Gardener. In this work he gives a list of 
evergreens, trees and flowers " which will thrive best in the 
London gardens," as " everything will not prosper . . . because 
of the smoke of the sea-coal . . . but," he continues, " I find that 
most persons whose business requires them to be constantly 
in town will have something of a garden at any rate. One may 
guess the general love my fellow citizens have of gardening, in 
furnishing their rooms and chambers with basons of flowers 
and Bough pots, rather than not have something of a garden 
before them." In the course of the work he mentions several 
trees which were then (1722) to be seen flourishing in different 
parts of London : Spanish broom, ilex, guelder rose, syringa 
and lilac in Soho Square ; pears, in several " confined alleys " 
about Barbican, Aldersgate, and Bishopsgate ; a vine bearing 
good grapes in Leicester fields ; figs in Roll's Garden in Chancery 
Lane, and in Dr. Bennet's in Cripplegate ; lily of the valley in a 
close place at the back of Guild Hall ; plane trees by St. 
Dunstan-in-the-East, above forty feet high, besides all the 
numerous plants seen growing to perfection at Westminster, 
and " the parts of London near the river." So many curious 
plants were raised by this enthusiastic gardener in his own 
garden at Hoxton, that he thought with proper care almost 
anything would grow in the town. He completes a list by 
saying : " I am almost persuaded that the olive would do well 
in London." 

The name of Fairchild is still remembered in the part of 
London in which he lived. " The Fairchild Lecture " is 
delivered annually in St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, in accordance 
with the bequest left by him. The subject of the sermon, 
which is preached on Whit-Tuesday, is either on " The 
Wonderful Works of God in the Creation," or " On the certainty 
of the resurrection of the dead, proved by the certain changes 
of the animal and vegetable parts of the creation." The 
preacher, appointed yearly by the Bishop of London, still 
expounds the founder's analogies by the light of modern 
science. 

Fairchild was a member of a Society of Gardeners, and seems 
to have taken a leading part, as his name stands first upon the 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 235 

list of the members, given at the end of the preface of the work 
pubHshed by them, the year after Fairchild's death.^ This 
book is one of great interest. Only one part was pubhshed, 
others were to follow if the first met sufficient encouragement, 
and that this was not so is much to be regretted. The following 
gardeners were the joint authors : 



Thomas Fairchild. 
Robert Furber. 
John Alston. 
Obadiah Lowe. 
Phihp Miller. 
John Thompson. 
Christopher Gray. 
Francis Hunt. 
Samuel Driver. 
Moses James. 



George Singleton. 
Thomas Bickerstaff. 
William Hood. 
Richard Cole. 
William Welstead. 
Benjamin Whitmill. 
Samuel Hunt. 
John James. 
Stephen Bacon. 
William Spencer. 



Most of these men were nursery-gardeners, and all lived 
in London or the suburbs : Furber at Kensington ; Alston, 
Miller, and Thompson at Chelsea ; Lowe and Cole in Batter- 
sea ; Fairchild, Whitmill, and Bacon at Hoxton ; Francis and 
Samuel Hunt at Putney ; Gray at Fulham ;^ James in Lambeth ; 
George Singleton at the Neat Houses ; and William Hood at 
the Wheatsheaf near Hyde Park Corner. Every month, for 
five or six j^ears, this Society met at Newhall's Coffee-house in 
Chelsea, or other convenient place near. Each member 
brought some plants of his o\mi growing, which were discussed 
by the assembled gardeners. The names and descriptions 
were then carefully registered. At the end of five or six years 
they decided to have all the plants they had catalogued 
" drawn and painted by an able hand." For this purpose 
they engaged the services of Jacob van Huysum ; a good 
artist, and brother of the famous Dutch flower painter. They 
got together a large collection of drawings, and finally agreed 
to publish them. The first part only, containing hardy shrubs, 
appeared. It was to have been followed by other volumes, 

^ Catalogus Plantarum : A Catalogue of Trees, Shrubs, etc., for Sale in 
the Gardens near London, by a Society of Gardeners, 1730. The British 
Museum copy is under Fairchild's name, 452, h. 2. 

^ The Magnolia grandiflora was first planted in Gray's garden. See 
Johnson's History of English Gardening, p. 202. 



236 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

for more tender exotics, then by " flowers for the pleasure- 
gardens," and also a part devoted to fruits. The great value 
of the part published is that it mentions all the synonyms, and 
refers to many previous writers to identify each plant, and 
gives the history of the introduction of some of the new 
varieties ; their monograph on the honeysuckle, which occupies 
several pages, is of great worth. They also refer to good 
specimens of trees in some well-Known London gardens. The 
following is an instance; the Service tree { = Pyrus sorbus), 
" In the garden which was formerly in the possession of John 
Tradescant at South Lambeth, as also at Mr. Marsh's at 
Hammersmith, a curious collector of rare and uncommon trees, 
in both which places these Trees annually produce large 
quantities of Fruits which ripen perfectly well." Again, there 
is a note added to the description of the " Three Thorned 
Acacia or Locust Tree" { = Gleditschia triacanthos) , "that it 
hath produced pods in the gardens of the Bishop of London 
at Fulham this year 1729."-^ The naturahst Catesby is often 
referred to in these pages as the introducer of several plants. 
The following are among the number : Bignonia Americana, 
the Catalpa, which had not flowered in England in 1730 ; the 
yellow-berried Hawthorn ( = CratcBgus flava), sent from Carolina 
in 1724 ; the Carolina Ash {=^Fraxinus Caroliniana), " raised 
from seeds sent over from South Carolina by Mr. Catesby, 
anno 1724; Tilia Caroliniana ( = r. Americana) in 1726; the 
Carolina kidney-bean tree {=^ Wistaria frutescens), 1724, which 
had only flowered (in 1730) in Robert Furber's garden at Ken- 
sington ; the scarlet flowering Acacia, and the " Water Acacia " 
{=^Gleditschia triacanthos inermis), both sent home in 1723. 

Mark Catesby was an eminent naturalist. He first collected 
in Virginia, and being induced by Sir Hans Sloane and others 
to return to America to work still further in the cause of science, 
he went out again for some six or seven years, and during his 
stay sent home seeds from time to time. On his return in 
1726, he began his great work. Natural History of Carolina, 
Florida, and the Bahama Islands, the first part of which was 
published 1731. The genus Catesbaea, or lily-thorn, was named 
after him by his contemporary, Gronovius, the Dutch naturalist. 
^ This tree only died in 1906. 




TITLE-PAGE OF CATALOGUE OF THE SOCIETY OF GARDENERS, I73O. 

To face page 222. 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 237 

The most celebrated member of this Society of Gardeners 
was PhiHp Miller, keeper of the Chelsea Physic-garden, and 
author of a well-known Gardener's Dictionary. This work first 
appeared in 1731, and was so popular that a seventh edition 
was brought out in 1759, and it was translated into Dutch, 
German, and French. Each successive edition shows some 
progress in the science of botany, and an immense increase in 
the number of foreign plants. In the seventh edition. Miller 
adopted the Linnaean system of classification. He had previ- 
ously become acquainted with the great Swede during his visit 
to England in 1736, and it was the year following that Linnaeus's 
first great work, which revolutionized classification. Genera 
Plantarum, appeared. Miller was a man well suited to the 
work he undertook ; he was both practical and scientific ; he 
first followed the system of Tournefort, then that of Ray, but 
was sufficiently learned and clear-sighted to go with the times, 
and adopt the improved nomenclature of Linnaeus. The 
quantities of new plants coming in not only required skilful 
growing, but careful arrangement and classification, and Philip 
Miller did much good work in both ways. 

Not only were plants arriving in from America, but new 
treasures found their way to England from distant parts of the 
Old World also. William Sherard, a learned botanist and 
friend of Ray and Sloane, and patron of Catesby, was, in 1702, 
appointed Consul at Smyrna, and during his stay there, until 
1718, employed much of his time in making a collecton of the 
plants of Greece and Asia Minor. His younger brother, 
James, at Eltham in Kent, had a famous garden, and cultivated 
many of the new exotics sent home by William. Besides 
foreign importations, gardeners at home added to the number 
of cultivated plants by trying experiments of hybridizing, 
producing double varieties, and more especially variegation. 
Such things as variegated " silver-striped," or " gold-blotched," 
lilacs, syringa, privet, phillyrea, or maple were great favourites. 

Improved methods of heating and building conservatories 
and hot-houses made it possible not only to shelter " tender 
exotics " and grow fruit, but to force vegetables. Attempts 
were made to force grapes, and the experiment was tried by the 
Duke of Rutland at Belvoir. Bradley and Switzer describe 



238 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

the process, which was to " build ovens at certain distances at 
the back of walls, and keeping them continually warm from 
January till the Sun's Power is sufficient of itself to maintain 
the growth of the plants growing against such walls . . . 
whereby the latest kinds of grapes are commonly ripen' d 
about July or August." Bradley adds a caution which takes 
one step farther towards a modern vinery, " Take notice, 
that during the cold season, when these Fruits are forced to 
shoot unseasonably, the Plants must be cover'd with glasses 
to prevent the injuries they might receive from frosts."^ At 
Lord Derby's, at Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool, there was 
another method of heating a wall to produce early grapes, 
thus described by a traveller in 1732 : "An hot wall here for 
Vines, ye wall is built hollow, or you may say two walls are run 
up just together, at each end are Stoves where you put in the 
coal & there is a chimney in y^ halfway of y^ wall : y^ fires 
are lighted every night. "^ Philip Miller had a method of 
forcing apricots and cherries by nailing the trees on to a screen 
of boards, facing south, covering the front with glass, and 
piling up the back of the boards with a hot bed. 

Rose is said to have raised a pine-apple in England, and 
presented it to Charles 11. , but for many years that remained a 
unique specimen and an unrivalled feat. The culture was not 
understood until this period. Henry Tellende, gardener to Sir 
Matthew Decker, at Richmond, was the first who brought the 
" Ananas or Pine Apple to rejoice in our climate."^ Before 
long, several growers gave their attention to Pines, and within 
fifty years books entirely devoted to their culture found ready 
sale.^ 

Fairchild, at Hoxton, and Green, at Brentford, had two of 
the best fruit gardens, the latter being exceptionally good for 
figs. But it was more especially in vegetable culture that 
great advances were made. There had for long been a fair 

^ Bradley, Works of Nature, 1721. 

* Diary of a Tour in 1732 made by John Loveday, of Caversham, edited 
by his Grandson. Roxburghe Club, 1890. 

^ Bradley, Dictionarium Botanicum, 1728. 

* Ananas, a Treatise on the Pine Apple, by John Giles, 1767. A Treatise 
on the Anana, by Adam Taylor, Devizes, 1769. Treatise on the Pine 
Apple, by W. Speechley, 1779. 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 239 

supply of vegetables in England ; but when anything special, 
anything early, or out of season, was wanted on great festive 
occasions, it was procured from abroad, chiefly from Holland. 
This induced enterprising gardeners, early in the eighteenth 
century, to make attempts at forcing greens and salads, aspara- 
gus and cucumbers. The first to raise the latter in the autumn 
for fruiting in winter was Fowler, gardener to Sir N. Gould, 
at Stoke Newington. He presented George I, with two fine 
cucumbers on New Year's Day, 172 1. Samuel ColHns, in 
1717, wrote a Treatise on the culture of melons and cucumbers, 
suggesting various glasses and frames for their protection. 
The following is quoted from Bradley, and gives the names of 
some of the pioneers in early forcing : " The first which are 
Kitchen Gardens and exceed all the other gardens in Europe 
for wholesome Produce and variety of Herbs are those at the 
Neat-Houses near Tuttle-fields, Westminster, which abound in 
Salads, early Cucumbers, Colliflowers, Melons, Winter Aspara- 
gus, and almost every Herb fitting the Table ; and I think 
there is no where so good a school for a Kitchen gardener as 
this Place ; tho' Battersea affords the largest natural Asparagus 
and the earHest Cabbages. Again, the Gardens about Ham- 
mersmith are as famous for Strawberries, Rasberries, Currants, 
Gooseberries, and such like ; and if early Fruit is our Desire 
Mr. Millet's, at North End, near the same Place, affords us 
Cherries, Apricocks, and Curiosities of those kinds, some 
months before the Natural Season." Another good nursery- 
man near London was Nicholas Parker at Chiswick. He is 
highly recommended by Lawrence as known to all men for his 
" honesty, skill, and integrity," which seems more than could 
be said of all in the same trade. They were inclined to cheat 
and send out inferior varieties of fruit, in the place of those 
ordered by the purchaser, " a dry insipid Nectorine " instead of 
" an old Newington Peach, or instead of a rich French Pear 
a gritty choak-pear or Warden."^ 

Kalm, the great Swedish horticulturalist, after whom the 
genus Kalmia was named, who passed through England on his 
way to America, in 1748, was struck by the market-gardens and 

^ The Clergyman's Recreation. John Lawrence, Rector of Yelver- 
toft, Northamptonshire, 1714. 



240 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

early vegetables which he saw. He describes some gardens 
where the beds were raised, sloping a little towards the sun, 
and " most of them were at this time (February) covered with 
glass frames, which could be taken off at will. . . . Russian 
matting over these, and straw over that four inches thick. 
These contained cauhflowers some four inches high. In the 
rest of the field were ' bell-glasses,' under which also cauHflower- 
plants were set 3 or 4 under each bell-glass. Besides the 
afore-named beds, there were here long asparagus-beds. Their 
height above the ground was two feet ; on the top they were 
similarly covered with glass, matting, and straw, which had 
just been all taken off at midday. The Asparagus under them 
was one inch high and considerably thick. "^ Radishes were 
also grown in the same garden, and the beds covered with 
mats. In the month of May, he says, the vegetables which 
were most numerous round London were beans, peas, cab- 
bages of different sorts, leeks, chives, radishes, lettuce (salad), 
asparagus, and spinach. He writes of Chelsea : " There is 
scarcely anything else than either orchards or vegetable market 
gardens, and large fields all planted full of all kinds of small 
trees for sale." 

Thus it will be seen that great strides had been made in 
vegetable culture. In some things, however, gardeners still 
had very primitive ideas. When, in 1729, an aloe [Agave) 
flowered in " Mr. Cowell's garden at Hoxton," there was great 
excitement as to how it should be kept through the winter.^ 
The plant was then 20 feet high, and an erection of wood 
and glass was built over it, and stoves placed outside with 
pipes to " convey a due proportion of heat," and it was so 
arranged that the structure could be heightened, if necessary, 
to suit the " unexpected growth of this famous plant." They 
must have been much distressed to find all this care and 
expense of httle use, as not only the flower, but most of the 
plant itself, was bound to perish after flowering. 

A great many of the vegetables grown in these market 

^ Kalm's Visit to England, translated by Joseph Lucas, 1892. 

2 A True Account of the Aloe Americana or Africana now in Flower in 
Mr. Cowell's Garden at Hoxton. . . . The like wherof has never been seen 
in England before . 1729. 



DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 241 

gardens would be sold in the streets of London. The various 
cries of the hawkers were a notable feature of London life. One 
among the many refrains of this perpetual chorus is recalled 
by Addison/ when he writes : " I am always pleased with 
that particular time of the year which is proper for the pickling 
of dill and cucumbers, but alas ! this cry, like the song of the 
nightingale, is not heard above two months." Some of the 
best-known cries are preserved in an old ballad of early but 
uncertain date, from which the following is an extract :^ 

" Here's fine rosemary, sage and thyme 
Come buy my ground ivy. 
Here fatherfew, gilliflowers and rue 
Come buy my knotted mar jorum ho ! 
Come buy my mint my fine green mint 
Here's fine lavender for your cloaths 
Here's parseley and winter savory 
And heart's-ease which all do choose 
Here's balm and hissop and cinque foil 
All fine herbs it is well known 
Let none despise the merry merry cries 
Of Famous London Town. 

" Here's penny royal and marygolds .j 

Come buy my nettle-tops 
Here's water-cresses and scurvy-grass 
Come buy my sage of virtue ho ! 
Come buy my wormwood and mugwort 
Here's all fine herbs of every sort 
Here's southern wood that's very good 
Dandelion and houseleek 
Here's dragon's-tongue and wood sorrel 
With bear's-foot and horehound 
Let none despise the merry merry cries 
Of Famous London Town. 

" Here's green coleworts and brocoli 
Come buy my radishes 
Here's fine savorys and ripe hautboys 
Come buy my young green bastings ho !' 
Come buy my beans right Windsor beans 
Two pence a bunch young carrots ho ! 

^ Spectator, 251. 

' " Roxburghe Ballads, 1560-1700," History of the Cries of London, 
Charles Hindley, second edition, 1884. 
^ Hasting peas, see p. 125. 

16 



242 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Here's fine nosegays ripe strawberries 
With ready pickled salad also 
Here's coUyflowers and asparagus 
New prunes twopence a pound 
Let none despise the merry merry cries 
Of Famous London Town. 

" Here's cucumbers spinage and frinch beans 
Come buy, my nice sallery 
Here's parsnips and fine leeks 
Come buy my potatoes ho ! 
Come buy my plumbs and fine ripe plumbs 
A groat a pound ripe filberts ho ! 
Here's corn-poppies and mulberries 
Goose berries and currants also 
Fine nectarines peaches and apricots 
New rice two pence a pound 
Let none despise the merry merry cries 
Of Famous London Town." 

These cries become more rare in London every year, but 
the tune sungt by lavender-sellers must be familiar to all who 
are in town at'^the end of July. The following words I wrote 
down from the dictation of a Httle boy, who was singing them 
and selling lavender in Eaton Place, July 21, 1900 : 

" Come buy my blooming lavender, 
^ Sixteen branches for a penny. 

All around the square I go 
Ciying out sixteen branches a penny. 

" Now's the time to scent your kerchief 
With my blooming lavender. • 

Buy it once, you'll buy it twice ; 
It makes your clothes smell very nice." 



CHAPTER XII 

LANDSCAPE GARDENING 

"... So will I rest in hope 
To see wide plains, fair trees, and lawney slope ^ 
The morn, the eve, the light, the shade, the flowers ; 
Clear streams, smooth lakes, and overlooking towers." 

Keats. 

IS there anything more shocking than a stiff, regular 
garden ?"^ What a revolution of the taste in gardening 
these words reveal ! Yet such a complete change in fashion 
had taken place that this was the opinion held by all the 
garden designers of the latter half of the eighteenth century. 
Nor were they content to lay out new gardens to suit the 
prevailing style, but they freely destroyed, and abused, where 
they could not obliterate, the work of fomier generations. 
The leader of this new departure in garden design was Kent. 
He was the successor of Bridgeman, and at first made gardens 
on the same plan. Soon, however, he went so far beyond him 
as to entirely leave the formal garden, and substitute for it the 
landscape style. Walpole considers the first step towards this 
revolution to have been the introduction of the sunk fence. 
And certainly he there touched the key-note, for as soon as 
walls and enclosures were dispensed with, any piece of natural 
and rural scenery could be included in the garden. " The 
capital stroke, "2 he wrote, " the leading step to all that has 
followed, was (I believe the first thought was Bridgeman' s) 
the destruction of walls for boundaries, and the invention of 
fosses ... an attempt then deemed so astonishing, that the 

^ Batty Langley, New Principles of Gardening, 1728. 
* Essay on Modern Gardening, by Horace Walpole, 1785. 

243 16 — 2 



244 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

common people called them Ha ! Ha's ! to express their 
surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their 
walk." " No sooner was this simple enchantment made, than 
levelling, mowing, and rolling, followed. The contiguous 
ground of the park without the sunk fence was to be harmo- 
nized with the lawn within ; and the garden in its turn was to 
be set free from its prim regularity, that it might assort with 
the wilder country without. ... At that moment appeared 
Kent, painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold 
and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with 
a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of 
imperfect essays. He leaped the fence, and saw that all 
Nature was a garden. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and 
valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the 
beauty of the gentle swell, or concave scoop, and remarked 
how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy 
ornament, and while they called in the distant view between 
their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective by 
delusive comparison." 

This shows the ideal which Kent was striving after. To 
copy Nature was the aim of the new school : " Nature abhors a 
straight line," was one of Kent's ruling principles, so avenues 
and straight walks and hedges were an eyesore to him, and 
this feeling of dislike was shared by other landscape gardeners. 
Batty Langley wrote : " To be condemned to pass along the 
famous vista from Moscow to Petersburg, or that other from 
Agra to Labor in India, must be as disagreeable a sentence, as 
to be condemned to labour at the gallies. I conceiv'd some 
idea of the sensation . . . from walking but a few minutes, 

immured, betwixt Lord D 's high shorn yew hedges." 

This is but a specimen of the exaggerated language in which 
the new school of gardeners expressed their contempt for the 
work of their predecessors. 

This passion for the imitation of Nature was part of the 
general reaction which was taking place, not only in gardening, 
but in the world of letters and of fashion. The extremely 
artificial French taste had for long taken the lead in civilized 
Europe, and now there was an attempt to shake off the shackles 
of its exaggerated formalism. The poets of the age were also 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 245 

pioneers of this school of Nature. Dyer, in his poem of 
Grongar Hill, and Thomson, in his Seasons, called up 
pictures which the gardeners and architects of the day strove 
to imitate in the scenery they planned. The idea was to 
create a landscape such as poets celebrated or as Claude 
immortalized on canvas. But the lovers of the beauties of 
Nature soon became as hopelessly fettered by rules and theories 
as had been the designers of the more formal schools. The 
gardens they laid out were planned to produce a set impression 
on the beholder. " Garden scenes," wrote the poet Shenstone, 
" may perhaps be divided into the sublime, the beautiful, and 
the melancholy or pensive."^ " Art," says this same writer, 
" should never be allowed to set foot in the province of Nature," 
and yet these gardeners advocated every sort of artifice to 
impose on the spectator, and to make the landscape appear 
different from what it really was. Shenstone himself suggests 
a means by which an avenue may be made to appear longer 
than its true length. " An avenue that is widened in front and 
planted there with yew trees, then firs, then with trees more 
and more fady, till they end in the almond willow or silver 
osier ; will produce a very remarkable deception." His own 
garden at Leasowes was held by all who practised this " art 
of gardening " to be a most perfect specimen of this style. 
There was a lake, and small streams, and cascades, which 
George Mason describes as " living fountains," and says they 
were here " carried to the pitch of perfection." A seat over- 
looking one of these streams was inscribed with a poem in its 
praise, which ends thus : 

" Flow, gentle stream, nor let the vain 
Thy small unsullied stores disdain : — 
Nor let the pensive sage repine 
Whose latent course resembles thine." 

All through the garden, in the dingle, or by the side of the 
serpentine walks, seats, grottoes, ruins, or urns, appeared at 
unexpected places, and were inscribed with lines addressed to 
some friend, or singing the praises of some natural beauty. 
Most conspicuous among the innovations was the change in 

^ Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening, by Wm. Shenstone, 1764. 



246 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

the form of the ornamental sheets of water. " Stone basons," 
marble fountains, and straight canals, were swept away, or 
converted into miniature waterfalls, winding streams, or arti- 
ficial lakes. Lord Bathurst, at Ryskins, near Colebrook,^ was 
the first to make a winding stream through a garden, and so 
unusual was the effect that his friend. Lord Stafford, could not 
believe it had been done on purpose, and supposing it to have 
been for economy, asked him " to own fairly how little more 
it would have cost to have made the course of the brook in a 
strait direction." About this time Queen Caroline " threw a 
string of ponds in Hyde Park into one to form what is called 
the Serpentine River." This is only one among many instances 
which show that these so-called reforms, undertaken with the 
aim of increased simplicity, resulted in greater stiffness and 
formality. This is not to be wondered at, when the influence 
of Chinese gardening on this school of design is taken into 
account. Sir WiUiam Chambers, one of this new class of 
gardeners, had, in his youth, made a voyage to China, and 
brought back from that country ideas which he set forth in his 
work entitled Dissertations on Oriental Gardening. The Pagoda 
at Kew, designed by him, is a well-known monument of this 
passing fashion. A Chinese writer, Lien-tschen, himself lays 
down the principles which ruled their gardening : " The Art 
of laying out gardens consists in an endeavour to combine 
cheerfulness of aspect, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude, 
and repose, in such a manner that the senses may be deluded 
by an imitation of rural Nature. "^ Alluding to this supposed 
resemblance of English gardens to those of China, Oliver 
Goldsmith wrote : " The English have not yet brought the art 
of gardening to the same perfection with the Chinese, but 
have lately begun to imitate them. Nature is now followed 
with greater assiduity than formerly : the trees are suffered to 
shoot out into the utmost luxuriance ; the streams, no longer 
forced from their native beds, are permitted to wind along the 
valleys : spontaneous flowers take the place of the finished 
parterre, and the enamelled meadow of the shaven green." 
Batty Langley was one of the exponents of the principles 

* Progress of Gardening, by Barrington. Archceologia, vol. v., 1782. 
2 Quoted in Praise of Gardens, by Albert F. Siveking, 1885. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 247 

which guided some of these Landscape-Gardeners. The chief 
of them he lays down in twenty-eight rules, among which 
are the following : " The grand front of the building lies open 
upon an elegant lawn, adorned with statues, terminated on 
its sides with open groves." " Such walks whose views cannot 
be extended terminate in Woods, Forests, misshapen Rocks, 
strange Precipices, Mountains, old Ruins, grand buildings, 
&c." "No regular evergreens in any part of an open plain or 
parterre." " No borders or scroll work cut in any lawn or 
parterre." " That all gardens be grand, beautiful and natural." 
" That all the trees in your shady walks and groves be planted 
with sweet Briar, white Jessemine, and Honeysuckle, environed 
at the Bottom with a small circle of Dwarf stock. Candy tuft 
and Pinks." " Hills and Dales be made by art where Nature 
has not performed the act before." " That the intersections 
of walks be adorned with statues," and many like rules for the 
correct way of making " rivulets, aviaries, grottoes, cascades, 
rocks, ruins, niches, canals, and fishponds." He also gives a 
long Hst of what statues were most suitable for each place : 
Pomona in the Orchard, Harpocrates, the God of Silence, for a 
grove, and so on. This subject of statues much perturbed 
some of the designers. " The use of statues," wrote George 
Mason, " is a dangerous attempt in gardening, not impossible, 
however, to be practised with success : how peculiarly happy 
is the position of the river God at Stourhead (Sir Richard 
Hoare's) in Wiltshire ! . . . I remember a figure at Hagley,^ 
which one could fancy darting across the Alley of a grove . . . 
and only wished the pedestal had been concealed." These 
statues, urns, and monuments were arranged to impart to the 
beholder a particular impression, on first discovering them. 
Shenstone discusses the various sensations produced by an 
urn, and comes to the conclusion that " Solemnity is perhaps 
their point, and the situation of them should still co-operate 
with it." " They are more solemn, if large and plain." A 
clump of trees, a lake, or wilderness, had to be " sublime," 
" beautiful," " picturesque," " solemn," " grand," " digni- 
fied," or " elegant." A wood was planted for " rudeness or 
grandeur," a " grove for beauty," a cave or grotto was to strike 
^ Laid out by Lord Lyttleton. 



248 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

" horror or terror." " A feigned steeple of a distant church 
or an unreal bridge, to disguise the termination of water, "^ 
were brought in to " improve the landscape." These designers 
were careful not only of form, but also of colour ; the " solemn 
grove " had to be planted with trees of dark foHage, and some 
touch of bTight colour was introduced to give effect to the 
landscape. " An object of a sober tint unexpectedly gilded 
by the sun is like a serious countenance suddenly lighted up 
by a smile, a whitened object, like the eternal grin of a fool,"^ 
wrote one authority on the subject. Such were the high-flown 
ideas which inspired these designers, but in their efforts to 
reproduce the beauties of Nature they fell into the most 
artificial system that can possibly be imagined. William 
Mason's poem, " The English Garden," addressed to " Divine 
SimpHcity," is characteristic of the spirit which guided these 
" reformers," of which Sir Walter Scott said it " is not sim- 
plicity but affectation labouring to seem simple." 

Many places were laid out on this new plan by Kent. The 
gardens at Esher, 

" Where Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love," 

and at Claremont, were considered some of his best produc- 
tions ; also Carlton House, which he designed for the Prince of 
Wales. Walpole thought " the most engaging of all Kent's 
works," and most " elegant and antique," was Rousham, in 
Oxfordshire. Gunnersbury, near London,^ is also chiefly his 
handiwork. The original house, which was built by Inigo 
Jones, or his pupil, Webbe, in 1663, for Sir John Maynard, 
has disappeared, but the garden still shows much of the 
designs carried out by Kent about 1750, together with the 
further " Plantations " and " elegant erections " added by 
Princess Amelia, who bought the place in 1761, and spent large 
sums on the garden. The wall, some of the temples, and a 
bath summer-house built by her, and an imitation Gothic ruin 
still remain, as well as many fine timber trees, particularly 

^ Horace Walpole, Essay on Modern Gardening. 
^ Sir Uvedale Price, On the Picturesque. 

^ Belonging to Mr. Leopold Rothschild, now specially famous for 
the fruit growing under glass, which is carried to great perfection. 




GUNNERSBURY PARK. A TEMPLE IN THE GARDEN, 
Designed by Kent. 




CASTLE ASHBY. 
Designed by Brown. 



To face page 248. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 249 

cedars. There was much rivalry between some of these newly 
laid out gardens, each having its own admirers. 

" Some cry up Gunnesbury 

For Sion some declare 
And some say that with Chiswick 

No villa can compare 
But ask the beaux of Middlesex , 

Who know the country well 
If Strawberry Hill — if Strawberry Hill 

Don't bear away the bell."^ 

Kent began hfe as an apprentice to a coachbuilder ; with the 
assistance of friends he went to Italy, and studied painting. 
He, however, never attained any good results in that art, but 
succeeded better as an architect, and designed temples and ruins 
for gardens. By the help of his patron, Lord Burhngton, he was 
noticed by the Queen, and made Architect and then Painter to 
the Crown. He was looked up to by all the designers who 
followed as the originator of the idea, and founder of the 
School of Landscape-Gardening. At one time, his wish to 
follow Nature carried him so far that he planted dead trees 
in Kensington Gardens " to give a greater air of truth to the 
scene." But Walpole says " he was soon laughed out of this 
excess." Phihp Southcote appears to have been one of the 
first of those in whom Kent's " Elysian scenes excited the idea 
of improving their own domains," and " the elegance of 
Wooburn Farm (designed by him) was so conspicuous that 
even its faults were imposing."^ Pain's Hill, in Surrey, begun 
about the same time by Charles Hamilton, was " a perfect 
example of this mode."^ It was considered thoroughly typical 
of the best English taste, and for this reason is described by a 
foreigner who visited it in 1761,'* who thus gives his views on 

^ Verse from a ballad by the Earl of Bath, which appears in A Cata- 
logue of the Classic Contents of Strawberry Hill Collected by Horace 
Walpole, for sale by auction April, 1842. 

^ George Mason, Essay on Design in Gardening, 1768. Wooburn 
Farm, near Chertsey, no longer existed when G. W. Johnson wrote his 
History of English Gardening in 1829. 

^ Walpole. 

* Diary to England in the Years 1761-62, by Count Frederick Kiel- 
mansegge, translated by Countess Kielmansegge, 1902. Longman. 



250 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

this class of gardens : " Pains hill near Cobham lo English 
miles from Richmond. It belongs to Charles Hamilton, and 
its garden is decidedly worth a visit. . . . The Garden, like all 
of English design, is arranged according to modern ideas of an 
improvement on the beauty of Nature. The Principal features 
of all English Gardens are gravel or grass walks, between 
irregular high trees, or through wild growth consisting of all 
kinds of trees, shrubs and flowers, native and foreign, summer 
houses, seats and benches of all shapes and forms, placed in 
high or otherwise convenient places, and heathen temples, 
ruins, colonnades, hermitages, mosques, etc. An effort is 
frequently made to bring in a natural watercourse, or failing 
that, to dig out one artificially with many windings and 
turnings, waterfalls and bridges, so as to please the eye. 
Pretty views are the principal aim in gardens here, and an 
Englishman thinks nothing of a garden without water. , . . 
You are sometimes in doubt whether you are looking at a 
garden or at any ordinary landscape. . . . All this part of the 
garden is hilly, and is covered with high trees, thick shrubbery, 
etc., leaving space only for narrow walks ; and it is difficult to 
believe how art has been able to copy Nature to the extent 
done here. The fruit and kitchen gardens are always quite 
separate, and frequently so well hidden that you cannot 
discover them without help." These last lines show how 
complete the revulsion of feeling had been, and how far the 
days when men refreshed their spirits by sitting in an orchard 
had been left behind. Hagley, laid out by Lord Lyttleton, 
was another garden, or ferme ornee, in the same style, 
frequently referred to by contemporary writers, who praised 
" the new modelling of the shades and unfettering of the 
rills. "■•■ In spite of the admiration lavished by many on this 
place, Gilpin^ remarks that although " there are certainly 
many beautiful views in these extensive gardens, yet we can 
easily conceive the same variety of ground ... so combined 
as to produce a much nobler whole." Hagley, in Worcester- 
shire, was only a short distance from the Leasowes, already 

^ George Mason, Essay on Design in Gardening. 

^ Observations on Picturesque Beauty made in 1772, Particularly the 
Mountains and Lakes, by Wm. Gilpin. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 251 

referred to, which was perhaps the most admired garden of 
this type. Goldsmith and others, who had seen the place 
during the lifetime of its poet-possessor, lamented the changes 
and decay which marred it, only a few years after Shenstone's 
death. Wright was another designer of this landscape-school, 
who succeeded Kent. He planned and sketched designs, 
but did not himself superintend the carrying out of the 
works. 

The name which stands out most conspicuously in connection 
with landscape-gardening is that of Brown. From his habit 
of saying of any place he was asked to improve, or lay out 
afresh, that it " had great capabilities," he became known by 
the name of " Capability Brown." For a time he was the 
most popular of all designers. He was born in Northumber- 
land in 1715, and began as a kitchen-gardener, first at a small 
place near Woodstock, and then at Stow. He remained with 
Lord Cobham, in that capacity, until 1750, and it was not until, 
as head-gardener to the Duke of Grafton, he planned and 
executed a lake at Wakefield Lodge, that he attempted any 
designing. This brought him into notice, and through the 
influence of Lord Cobham, he was appointed Royal Gardener 
at Hampton Court, " and it was he who planted the celebrated 
vine there in 1796."^ He was next employed at Blenheim, 
and the way in which he made the lake there established 
his reputation, and soon everyone who wished to alter their 
grounds, or lay out new ones, employed Brown. He laid out 
Croome, Luton, Trentham, Nuneham, Burghley, and many 
other places, and altered in some way or the other half the 
gardens in the country. He became the fashion, and was con- 
sulted by nearly everyone in England who had a garden of any 
consideration. Had Brown confined himself to creating new 
landscapes and gardens, posterity could not have borne such 
a grudge against him. As it is, in studying the designs he 
carried out, it is difficult to look with an unprejudiced eye at 
his work, for before the results he produced can be admired, 
one is filled with regret for the beauties he swept away. 

^ Loudon, Encyclopcedia of Gardening. The parent of the Hampton 
Court vine was a Black Hamburgh planted by Mr. Eden at Valentine 
House, Essex, 1758. Phillips, Pomarium, 1820. 



252 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

" Improvement too, the idol of the age, 
Is fed with many a victim. Lo he comes ! 
The omnipotent magician. Brown, appears ! 
Down falls the venerable pile, the abode 
Of our forefathers. . . . 

He speaks — The lake in front becomes a lawn ; 
Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise, 
And streams, as if created for his use. 
Pursue the track of his directing wand." 

CowPER : The Garden. 

Old gardens in every part of England disappeared before 
the transforming influence of Brown, but luckily, before many 
years had passed a reaction set in, or it is doubtful whether 
a single garden would have survived. Sir Uvedale Price-"- 
described his pleasure on approaching " a venerable castle-like 
mansion built in the beginning of the fifteenth century," 
through an avenue of fine old trees. " I was much hurt," 
he continues, " to learn from the master of the place, that I 
might take my leave of the avenue and its romantic effects, 
for that its death-warrant was signed. The destruction of so 
many of these venerable approaches is a fatal consequence of 
the present excessive horror of straight lines. ... As to saving 
a few of the trees, I own I never saw it done with a good effect ; 
they always pointed out the old line, and the spot was haunted 
by the ghost of the departed avenue. ... At a gentleman's 
place in Cheshire, there is an avenue of oaks. Mr. Brown 
absolutely condemned it, but it now stands a noble monument 
of the triumph of the natural feelings of the owner over the 
narrow and systematic ideas of a professed improver." One 
is thankful that a few people had strength of mind enough to 
resist the all-powerful Brown. 

The management of water was considered Brown's strong 
point. A pleasing example of a sheet of water laid out by 
him is that at Castle Ashby.^ As it is now " improved by 
time " it could not fail to please even the most determined 
detractors of Brown. But here, too. Brown's hand worked 
destruction as well as improvement, for two rows of trees, 
forming part of one of the avenues planted about 1699, were 

^ Sir U. Price, On the Picturesque, 1794- 

^ Belonging to the Marquess of Northampton. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 253 

felled by his orders. He was lost in admiration of the rivers 
and lakes he created. Having completed one of these, he 
thought he had achieved such a success as to surpass the 
Thames, and is said to have exclaimed : " Thames ! Thames ! 
thou wilt never forgive me !" At Hackwood Park,^ in 
Hampshire, Brown effected various changes, which were thus 
spoken of a few years later : " Alterations on a considerable 
scale " were carried out, particularly on the south of the 
house, where there had been a garden " in the old style, with 
terraces, ascended by flights of steps, and adorned with statues 
on pedestals, a great reservoir of water, angular ramparts, &c. ; 
the view from the house was also interrupted by high yew hedges 
skirting long and formal avenues. Nature has now regained 
her rights ; the avenues have been broken into walks and 
glades, and several distant views admitted." It never seems 
to have occurred to these landscape-gardeners that an avenue 
and a yew hedge were in themselves beautiful objects. It is 
almost like a Norfolk girl who visited Switzerland, and com- 
plained that the mountains shut out the view ! Another 
scheme of wholesale devastation he suggested was luckily not 
acted upon. He proposed to blast away that part of the rock 
on which Powis Castle stands, which forms the first or " Sundial 
terrace," and make it into a flat lawn. This change would have 
been completely out of all keeping with the rest of the lovely 
garden, which had been made in the time of William and Mary, 
by Lord Rochfort, a Dutchman, who for a few years held the 
estates. The alterations he carried out at Burghley were 
also typical of his method. He took away the walls and hedges, 
entirely swept away a terraced kitchen-garden on a slope 
near the house, and in its place planted trees ; beyond this 
wooded eminence of his own creating, and in front of the site 
of the old formal garden, he made a lake. " How far the 
fashionable array, in which Mr. Brown has dressed the grounds, 
about this venerable building, agrees with its formality, and 
antique appendages, I dare not take upon me to say," wrote 
Gilpin, a few years after Brown's work was completed. " A 
doubt arises," he continues, " whether the old decoration of 
avenues and parterres was not in a more suitable style of oma- 
^ Belonging to Lord Bolton. 



254 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

ment. It is, however, a nice question, that would admit of 
many plausible arguments on both sides." 

Gilpin also doubts the expedience of the alterations Brown 
was carrying out at Roche Abbey, when he visited that place. 
Brown, it is said, was himself unable to draw a line, and had 
had no artistic training or education sufficient to understand 
the historical interest, or natural beauties of the scenes he 
tried to improve. It is therefore not to be wondered at that 
he signally failed, on many occasions, in his endeavours to 
create a more suitable landscape. " Many modern places," 
wrote Gilpin, " he has adorned and beautified, but a ruin 
presented a new idea, which I doubt whether he has sufficiently 
considered. He has finished one of the valleys which look 
towards Laughton spire : he has floated it with a lake, and 
formed it into a very beautiful scene. But I fear it is too- 
magnificent and too-artificial an appendage to be in unison 
with the ruins of an Abbey. "^ He levelled all the ground 
round the old Abbey, leaving the walls and pillars standing in 
" a neat bowling-green," and he removed all the overgrown 
pieces of ruin and mounds, which showed the old lines of the 
building, and even took stones from the Abbey to make the 
dam in the river, and get the effect of a waterfall. Gilpin 
most sarcastically remarks : " If Mr. Brown should proceed a 
step further, pull down the ruin, and build an elegant mansion, 
everything would then be right." Some of Brown's handiwork 
about the ruins has of late been removed, and their former 
conditions, as much as possible, restored. 

The following is the Agreement between Brown and Lord 
Scarborough made at the time of these alterations :^ 

The Agreement between Lord Scarborough and " Capability 
Brown," 1774. 

September the 12th, 1774. 
Then an Agreement made between the Earl of Scarbrough 
on the one Part, and Lancelot Brown on the other, for the 

^ Gilpin, Observations on Picturesque Beauty, 1776, Particulvrly the 
Highlands of Scotland, 

^ Copied from the original manuscript at Sandbeck, by the kind 
permission of the Earl of Scarborough. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 255 

underwritten Articles of Work to be Performed at Sandbeck 
in the County of York (To Wit) : 

Article the 1st. — To compleat the sunk Fence which separates 
the Park from the Farm, and to Build a Wall in it, as also to 
make a proper Drain at the Bottom of the Sunk Fence to keep 
it Dry. 

Article the 2nd. — To demolish all the old Ponds which are 
in the Lawn, and to level and Drain all the ground where they 
are. 

Article the ^rd. — To Drain and level all the ground which is 
between the above mentioned Sunk Fence and the old Canals 
mentioned in the Second Article. To plant whatever Trees may 
be thought necessary for Ornament in that Space discribed in 
this Article, and to sow with grass seeds and Dutch Clover 
the whole of the ground wherever the Turf has been broke up 
or disturbed by Drains, LeveHng or by making the Sunk Fence. 

Article the 4th. — To make good and keep up a Pond for the 
use of the stables. 

Article the ^th. — To finish all the Valley of Roach Abbey 
in all its Parts, according to the Ideas fixed on with Lord 
Scarbrough (with Poet's feeling and with Painter's eye) 
beginning at the Heads of the Hammer Pond and continuing 
up the Valley towards Loton, als : Loughton in the Morn, 
as far as Lord Scarbroughs ground goes, and to continue the 
Water and Dress the Valley up by the Present Farm House 
untill it comes to the seperation fixed for the Boundary of 
the New Farm. N : B : The Paths in the Wood are included 
in this Discription and every thing but the Buildings. The 
said Lancelot Brown does Promise for himself His Heirs 
Executors and Administrators to perform or cause to be 
Performed in the Best manner in His or Their Power between 
the Date hereof and December one Thousand Seven Hundred 
and Seventy Seven, the above written five Articles. For the 
Due Performance of the above written five Articles The Earl 
of Scarbrough does Promise for himself His Heirs Adminis- 
trators and Executors to Pay or cause to be Paid at the under- 
written Times of Payment Two Thousand Seven Hundred 
Pounds of Lawfull money of England, and three Hundred 
Pounds in consideration of and for the Plans and trouble 



256 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Brown has had for his Lordship at Sandbeck, previous to this 
Agreement, Lord Scarbrough to find Rough Timber, four 
able Horses, carts, and Harness for them, wheelbarrows and 
Planks, as also Trees and Shrubbs. 
The Times of Payment in 



June, 1775 


£800 


Feb. 1776 


400 


June, D°. 


400 


Feb. 1777 


600 


On Finishing the work 


800 




£3000 


(Signed) 


Scarbrough. 




Lancelot Brown. 



The melancholy spectacle presented by some of the stately 
houses surrounded by the stiff and unreal " natural land- 
scape " substituted by Brown for the carefully designed and 
well-kept old gardens, is thus described by Knight :^ 

" Oft when I've seen some lonely mansion stand 
Fresh from the improver's desolating hand, 
Midst shaven lawns that far around it creep 
In one eternal undulating sweep ; 
And scatter'd clumps, that nod at one another. 
Each stiffly waving to its formal brother : 
Tired with the extensive scene, so dull and bare. 
To Heaven devoutly I've address'd my prayer 
Again the moss-grown terraces to raise. 
And spread the labyrinth's perplexing maze ; 
Replace in even hnes the ductile yew. 
And plant again the ancient avenue. 
Some features then, at least, we should obtain 
To mark this fiat, insipid, waving plain : 
oome vary'd tints and forms would intervene 
To break this uniform, eternal green." 

Although Brown was assailed by Gilpin, Price, Knight, and 
Mason, he had many adherents and imitators. Repton is the 
best known of these. He was an admirer of Brown's works, 

^ " The Landscape," a didactic poem in three books, addressed to 
Sir Uvedale Price by R. P. Knight, second edition, 1795. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 257 

and carried out designs in the same style. As, however, men 
had now begun to find out Brown's mistakes, and reflect on 
his destruction of old places and historical relics, Repton 
could scarcely venture to suggest such sweeping alterations as 
Brown had made. Repton was openly an opponent of those 
who wrote against Brown, yet their ideas evidently influenced 
his judgment. He did not always alter all he found at a 
place, before commencing additions, and he did not entirely 
confine himself to the " landscape " style. He maintained 
that a " Flower garden should be an object detached and 
distinct from the general scenery of the place ; and whether 
large or small, whether varied or formal, it ought to be pro- 
tected from hares and smaller animals by an inner fence ; 
within this enclosure rare plants of every description should 
be encouraged, and provision made of soil, and aspect for every 
different class. Beds of bog earth should be prepared for the 
American plants : the aquatic plants, some of which are 
peculiarly beautiful, should grow on the surface or near the 
edges of water. The numerous class of rock-plants should 
have beds of rugged stone provided, without the affectation 
of such stones being the natural production of the soil ; but, 
above all, there should be poles or hoops for those kind of 
creeping plants which spontaneously form themselves into 
graceful festoons when encouraged and supported by art."^ 
Such was Repton's idea of a flower-garden, but that was to 
form but a small portion of the design, and its very existence 
seemed to him to require an apology. He boasts that he had 
" frequently been the means of restoring acres of useless 
garden to the deer or sheep, to which they more properly 
belong," yet he sometimes designed a small formal garden for 
flowers. The " Dutch garden " at He well Grange was made 
according to his suggestions.^ It is a semicircle, surrounded by 
a cut Thuja hedge, and a high brick wall across the line of the 
arc. The beds within are edged with box, between which are 
small gravel paths tiled in the middle, and a sundial stands 
in the centre. He also designed the lawn and rock- 
garden, while an older French garden, approached by cut yew 

^ Repton, Observations on Landscape Gardening, 1803. 

2 MS. " Red Book " by Repton, belonging to the Earl of Plymouth. 

17 



25B A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

hedges, he did not interfere with. Much as he dishked avenues, 
as being " utterly inconsistent with Natural scenery/ '■*■ he 
occasionally respected " such marks of ancient dignity." At 
Finedon, although he thought the view " encumbered " by the 
vicarage and church, and said the garden wall, malt-house, 
pigeon-house, and even part of the village " must be removed," 
he spared the avenue called the " Holly Walk." 

When asked to make suggestions for the improvement of 
a place, Repton prepared what he called his " Red Book," 
with plans and pictures of the garden as it was, and as he pro- 
posed to make it. He pubhshed a collection of these "Red 
Books," amplifying it with expositions of his own views on 
landscape gardens. The best way to understand what these 
views were, is by a study of these " Red Books." A volume of 
these appeared in Repton's lifetime, but those quoted here and 
many others are still unpublished. The illustrations in his MS. 
" Red Book," of Woodford, in Essex,^ are typical of his methods. 
The first sketch in the book represents the house as it was, 
seen from the grounds, " with the kitchen-garden on the one 
side, and the naked village on the other. That the former 
ought to be removed, and the latter planted out, are such 
obvious improvements that I do not take upon myself the 
merit of suggesting them." The second view shows the place as 
it would be when these designs were carried out. The further 
alterations were chiefly made to gain a more pleasing prospect 
from the house, by the planting and turfing of a ploughed 
field, and the " floating the bottom of the lawn with water." 

His " Red Book " of Burley-on-the-Hill, in Rutland, is 
another unpublished volume of great interest, containing 
thirteen water-colour sketches and plans. ^ Burley was bought 
by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and James I. stayed 
there with him. During the Civil Wars the Parliamentary 
soldiers burned all the buildings except the stables, and the 
place was left in ruins, until Daniel, Earl of Nottingham, 

^ MS. " Red Book " by Repton, 1793, belonging to Miss Mackworth 
Dolben, Finedon, Northamptonshire. 

^ Reproduced from the original manuscript belonging to Courtenay 
Warner, Esq. 

^ Belonging to Alan George Finch, Esq. 




WOODFORD (no. I). 
Front a draiving by H. Repton. 




WOODFORD (no. 2). 
From the same draiviiig by H. Repton, shoxvingthc suggested improvements. 



To face page 258. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 259 

bought and rebuilt it in 1697. He planned every detail in 
both house and grounds with minute care, and the accounts 
and agreements for the work were all preserved. The whole 
place is on a grand scale, and has a magnificent situation. The 
house, stables, and forecourt occupy 7 acres. This forecourt 
originally was completely surrounded by a colonnade, and 
measured 500 feet across, and 800 from the entrance-gates 
to the house. Such formality was too much for Repton. 
"It is only by excluding Nature," he wrote, " that we can 
produce the effect of greatness in artificial objects, and a large 
court surrounded by buildings can have no pretentions to look 
Natural." For this reason he could not tolerate it, and on 
his advice, in 1796, the north side of it was pulled down, and 
replaced by iron raihngs. The porter's lodges were also 
removed, and the iron gates and their stone pillars were alone 
suffered to remain. On the south of the mansion lay the 
chief part of the garden. Here five terraces, with red-brick 
walls and stone copings, well covered with flowering plants, 
descended the hill-side, and opened on to an avenue which 
stretched for a mile across the park to two fish-ponds, and 
terminated with a stone gateway dating from Buckingham's 
time. There were originally three terraces,-^ but the Earl of 

^ The following are some of the agreements made wdth the Earl of 
Nottingham when he increased the number of terraces from three to 
five. The length is not mentioned in them, neither does Repton state 
the exact length, but it must have been somewhat over 450 feet, 
judging from his estimate for their removal. 

".William Edge, of the Parish of Kensington, has arranged with the 
Earl of Nottingham to levell the walks and gardens at Burley, as were 
set out and measured by Henry Dormer and Roger Jenkins (gardener), 
and to find Carts and Horses for performing the said work, the said Earl 
allowing grass and Hay for said horses for and in consideration of the 
summe of ;^300. The work to be finished by Michaelmas. 

" Nov. 24, 1696." 

" Lord Nottingham agreed with Joshua Walker for the building of 
the terrace walls. These walls were to be made of brick and stone, 
those against the Mount Walls to be above the ground alle two or more 
feet thick, as shall be necessary \vith the weight of earth, that lyes 
against them, or otherwise needful. The walls to be coaped with 
Clipsham stone. Lord Nottingham to promise the lime, water, sand, 
morter, earth, and brick stone. 

"April 14, 1697." 
17 — 2 



26o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Nottingham, in 1696-1697, altered them, and added two, which 
are spoken of as the " 106 foot " and the " 56 foot " Walks. ^ 
Repton sets forth in his usual style the reasons for his proposals 
with regard to these terraces and other alterations at Burley. 
The principles on which they were to "be conducted," he 
writes, was a " strict adherence to those parts of ancient garden- 
ing which contribute to its magnificence as a work of Art, but 
not in the instances where proper advantage can be taken of 
the natural beauties of its situation, and here a very happy 
line of separation presents itself. The upper great terrace in 
which the house stands is partly natural and partly artificial, 
and this ought to be preserved and acknowledged as a work of 
Art." He then proceeds to explain in detail how " the Upper 
Terrace may be preserved and the others obliterated."^ The 
present grand terrace as altered by Repton measures 840 feet 
long and 100 feet wide,^ and the balustrade which he placed 
along the entire length is 3 feet high. The wall which supports 
the terrace is 12 feet high, of white stone and brick, and nothing 
but a narrow path running along its base now separates it from 
the park. Having disposed of the terraces, Repton goes on 
to say, " It unfortunately happens we must also remove the 
kitchen garden," and he explains that this should be placed 
near the stables. He was not, however, permitted to do this, 
and the old garden, with its fruit-trees and glass, may still be 
seen.* The old bowling-green on the west was untouched by 

^ " Varney and Baker, Masons, by turning arches in y* 106 foot walk 
3 half arches, 64 walls to bear those arches, £2^ 8s. 

" By building part of the wall between y^ 106*^ walk and 56" walk. 
East of the Steps, and part of the East staircase, £^ 13s. 6|d. 

" Varney, by building part of wall at end of the 56" walk, £1 os. g^d. 

^ "If the Upper terrace remains, the earth taken from the second 
terrace will be sufficient for levelling those below. This I compute at 
450*^^ long X 70 wide x 5 deep, or 157,500 cub. ft., or 5,833 cub. yds., 
which I suppose could be moved at 4d. — whole cost, /loo. I compute 
the length to be at about 450 ft., because I propose the ends to be 
planted with thorns, holly, and hazels, and low growing brush wood." 

^ Practically 106 feet, if measured from the wall of the house, and 
not from the foot of the steps leading into it. 

* The glass in this garden dated from the Earl of Nottingham's time. 
In his accounts for 171 2 an entry occurs of payment to " Mr. Blunt, 
ye Painter, by painting ye Melon frames in ye garden, 116 yards at 
6d., £2 i8s. od." 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 261 

Repton,^ and though he wished for drastic changes in the fish- 
ponds and avenues, he was not allowed to have his own way. 
He longed to restore " these unsightly basins " to a natural 
shape, and as to the avenues — elm, lime, and sweet chestnut — 
he wrote : " There is no ingenuity in planting long rows of 
trees," or " cutting straight lines through a large wood. I 
should wish to obhterate all traces of art." He sums up his 
impressions of Burley, with its terraces, avenues, and spacious 
gardens, in words that show his whole attitude to formal 
gardening : " Burley possesses all the three great requisites of 
beauty, wood, water and uneven ground . . . but I never saw 
a place of so much natural beauty, so much counteracted by 
artificial mismanagement of former times." 

Repton was not the last of this school to admire and extol 
Brown ; some few still spoke of him in glowing terms : 

" Born to grace Nature, and her works complete 
With all that's beautiful, sublime and great. 
For him each Muse enwreathes the laurel crown, 
And consecrates to Fame immortal Brown. "^ 

As late as 1835 Dennis refers to him as a great " improver 
of English taste. "^ This author also bestows praise on some 
changes that Brown himself might have been proud of, if his 
achievements were measured by the amount he swept away. 
He speaks of the alterations in St. James's Park as " the 
best obliteration of avenues " that " has been effected . . . 
but it has involved a tremendous destruction of fine elms. 
Certainly considerable credit redounds to the projector of 
these improvements for astounding ingenuity in converting a 
Dutch Canal into a fine flowing river, with incurvated banks, 
terminated at one end by a planted island, and at the other by 
a peninsula." This was " planned and executed " by Eyton 
in 1827. The grounds of Buckingham Palace were about this 

^ " 1712. By three Rollstones for ye Garden, ;^i 10. By levelling 
a second time the Hill at the East end of the House, levelling the 
Bowling green (West), ;^ii5 2. 7. To William Benidge, ye Carpenter, 
for work at ye Bowling green House, ;^6 19. 6. 

^ The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste of Planting, an 
epistle to Charles Lord Viscount Irwin, 1767. Manuscript in Guildhall 
Library. 

^ The Landscape Gardener, by J. Dennis, 1835. ^ 



262 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

time altered from designs by Nash, and plans carried out by 
William Alton the younger, son of the author of Hortus 
Kewensis, the royal gardener at Kensington and Kew. The 
ground round Old Buckingham House must have been a 
charming specimen of a garden of Queen Anne's time. There 
were wide terraces, the walls of which were covered with roses 
and jessamine, parterres, " waterworks," and fountains, a 
canal 600 yards long, with a double row of limes on either side, 
also greenhouses, kitchen-garden, and a wilderness. George IV. 
had the whole of these swept away, and plain grass, a stiff 
artificial lake, with bays and promontories, and a few clumps 
of trees substituted. Some contemporary views show how 
bare and conventional the renovated landscape then appeared. 
Davis was another landscape gardener of this school, said by 
his contemporaries to have " displayed considerable taste," 
especially in the alterations he carried out at Longleat. Two 
views of Narford,-"- with an interval of 170 years between 
them, taken from as nearly as possible the same point of 
view, show how complete the change from a formal to a land- 
scape garden can be. The first of the cascade pond was sketched 
about 1720 by Edmond Prideaux, of Prideaux in Cornwall, 
when on a tour in Norfolk. The second is from a photograph 
taken in 1894. The lake, which covers 70 acres, was made about 
1842, and all traces of the stiff pond have vanished. Thus, in all 
parts of England, one after another, the old gardens disappeared. 
By the end of the eighteenth century landscape gardening had 
become the recognized national style of England, and it was 
copied on the Continent, in France, Italy, and Germany. 
" English gardens " became the fashion, and books were 
written abroad to extol the English taste, and invite other 
nations to copy it,^ and old gardens were destroyed to give 
place to the new style. But on the Continent one thing was 
lacking which was the redeeming point in all these landscapes, 
and that was the green turf. Nowhere is the grass so fair and 
green as in England, and landscape-gardeners appreciated this 
great advantage. 

^ Property of Mrs. Fountaine. 

^ Collections des Jardins Anglois. Le Rouge, Paris, 1776. Del' Arte 
dei Giardini Inglesi, Milan, 1801. Plan de Jardins dans le Gout 
Anglais. J. L. Mansa, Copenhagen, 1798, etc. 




f -n. 






•i|^^^ 




" t'C'^Wf"*! "4li*»lfe>*-**- 



NARFORD. 

From a sketch by Ediiiond Prideaux about 1731. 




NARFORD. 

Pliotographcd from as nearly as possible the same spot in 1SQ4. 



To face page 262. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 263 

It is strange the way in which the writers of this school 
pointed to Milton and Bacon as the founders of their taste. 
They claimed Bacon because he devotes a part of his ideal 
garden to a " natural wildness," and also praises " green grass 
kept finely shorn," and Milton, because he says that in 
Paradise there were 

" Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art 
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon 
Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain."* 

Yet how opposed to all ideas of landscape gardeners would 
these two men have been. Bacon, who loved the green grass, 
and yet would have his garden full of flowers in bloom in 
every month of the year, would have been shocked by the 
idea of " a garden . . . disgracing by discordant character the 
contiguous lawn," or by being told that " the flower-garden 
ought never to be visible from the windows of the house." 
Sir Walter Scott,^ in one of his charming articles on landscape 
gardening, points out that Milton never intended to censure 
the " trim gardens " of his own day, although he pictured 
natural beauties in the newly-created Paradise. Scott well 
understood the great mistake that had been made in destroy- 
ing these memorials of the past. He saw how perfectly an 
Elizabethan garden harmonized with the house, and while he 
could not vindicate the " paltry imitations of the Dutch, who 
clipped yews into monsters," he acknowledged that there 
existed gardens, " the work of London and Wise, and such 
persons as laid out ground in the Dutch taste, which would be 
much better subjects for modification than for absolute 
destruction." He admired the fine terraces, flights of steps, 
vases and balustrades, of gardens in the Italian style, and the 
fountains and waterworks of the French. 

Sir Uvedale Price, although he was the champion of rational 
landscape gardening, could only justify a " jet d'eau," because 
such things were to be seen in the form of Geysers. Sir Walter 
Scott, still more large-minded, felt sure that the captivating 
beauty " of a magnificent fountain , . . flinging up its waters 

* Paradise Lost, Book IV. 

^ Quarterly Review, vol. xxxvii., 1828, and Criticism, vol. v. 



264 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

into the air, and returning down in showers of mist," was in 
itself sufficient justification. These men who pointed out that 
some beauties were to be found in the formal garden, and the 
great folly of ruthlessly destroying everything in that style, 
gradually arrested the progress of destruction. The taste 
became modified, and further attempts to improve were not 
accompanied by such disastrous results. Great thanks are 
due to those who first saw the mistake that was being made, 
and who then had the courage to try and stem the onward tide 
of fashion. The writings of some of those who first appealed 
against the " Natural School " were couched in as strong 
language as that used but a few years before by the abusers of 
the formal style. The following lines from Knight, the opponent 
of Repton, are a fair example : 

" Hence, hence ! that haggard fiend however call'd. 
Thin meagre genius of the bare and bald ; 
Thy spade and mattock here at length lay down, 
And follow to the tomb thy favourite Brown : 
Thy favourite Brown, whose innovating hand 
First dealt thy curses o'er this fertile land."^ 

The absurdity of trying to make small villa gardens in the 
landscape style, with miniature lawns, " clumps and strips of 
trees," was pointed out by Loudon.^ He recommends instead 
designs in a more formal style, and gives plans of villa grounds 
of six acres laid out in " the geometric style," and others 
combining that with the newer fashions. Regent's Park was 
made in the early years of this century, and Loudon speaks of 
it to illustrate his theories. " The magnificent design of the 
late Mr. Fordyce, Surveyor-General, now executing (1812) in 
Marylebone Farm, will in a few years afford a noble example 
of the unison of the ancient and modern styles of planting." 

The flower-garden began once more to hold a more con- 
spicuous position, and to be considered as separate from the 
shrubbery, or less formal part, while that again was kept more 
distinct from the park beyond. The planting of the grounds 
outside the flower-garden was also much improved : the stiff 

^ Landscape, by R. P. Knight, 1795. 

^ Hints on the Formation of Gardens and Pleasure-Grounds, by J. C 
Loudon, 1812. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 265 

clumps and belts broken into, and trees arranged more orna- 
mentally. Sir Henry Steuart, of Allanton, whose work, The 
Planter's Guide, occasioned the review by Sir Walter Scott in 
The Quarterly, already referred to, was a good authority on the 
subject of planting, and by his own plantations, as well as in 
his works, gave useful hints as to the management of trees, 
and the choice of suitable ones for different situations. 

Thus the garden and its surroundings were once again being 
treated with more skill and taste. Although other styles are 
now practised as well, the landscape, in its reformed character, 
still finds admirers and skilful designers.-^ Architects have 
made garden design more of a study, and artists and gardeners 
also have, in many instances, shown that, with careful handling, 
the landscape style can be reconciled to the house, and most 
pleasing effects of scenery produced, well suited to this country 
and its climate. 

^ The Art and Practice of Landscape Gardening, by Henry Ernest 
Milner, 1890. 



CHAPTER XIII 

NINETEENTH CENTURY 

" Hence through the garden I was drawn, 
A realm of pleasance, many a mound. 
And many a shadow-chequered lawn, 
Full of the city's stilly sound ; 
And deep myrrh thickets blowing round 
The stately cedar, tamarisks, 
Thick rosaries of scented thorn. 
Tall orient shrubs and obelisks, 
Graven with emblems of the time." 

Lord Tennyson. 

THE progress of gardening during the last hundred years 
has been so great and so rapid that it would be a well- 
nigh endless task to take even a very cursory review of it 
in all its branches. The immense advance in botany and 
classification, the improved methods of cultivation, the vast 
hot-houses and stoves, and the countless treasures from 
tropical climes with which to stock them, the numberless plants 
collected from all parts of the world to beautify the flower- 
garden, and the endless florists' varieties, improved and added 
to year by year — all these combined to enhance the charm of 
the nineteenth-century garden. Though the gardens of our 
forefathers may be greatly praised, and the study of them 
proves how much there was to admire or imitate in them, it is 
difficult to imagine an English garden deprived of the count- 
less flowers which have been added to them of late years. Many 
flowers have become so familiar that it is hard to picture a 
garden without them, yet numbers of plants to be seen almost 
everywhere in 1900 had not been brought to our shores one 
hundred years before. To produce such changes many men 
have been at work, in every department, each contributing 

266 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 267 

something towards the progress of gardening. There have 
been practical gardeners and nurserymen, great botanists and 
men of knowledge and daring, whose lives have been risked 
in the cause of science, and to whose courage and perseverance 
the modem garden owes so many of its treasures. 

While the rage for landscape gardening was at its height, 
there were many skilful gardeners busy in a quiet way carrying 
on the work of horticulture. One of these was Abercrombie, 
whose writings were popular for many years. He was the 
son of a market-gardener near Edinburgh, and was born in the 
year 1726. The Battle of Preston Pans was fought close to 
his father's garden wall, and he was present at the time. His 
first place as gardener was with Sir James Douglas, and later 
on he married a relative of his former employer. In 1770 he 
settled with his family, consisting of two sons and sixteen 
daughters, between Mile End and Hackney, and there started 
a nursery garden. His first book. Every Man his own Gardener, 
came out in 1767, and he was so afraid of failure that he paid 
Mawe, gardener to the Duke of Leeds, the sum of £20 to allow 
his name also to appear on the title-page. Hence the book 
has become known as the work of Mawe and Abercrombie, 
although the latter wrote it entirely. His other writings. 
Amateur Gardening, The Gardener s Daily Assistant, and such- 
like, were equally popular, and were considered the standard 
works on the subject for upwards of fifty years. Another book 
of this date, by William Hanbury, also gives full directions for 
the cultivation of a great number of trees, shrubs, perennial and 
annual hardy flowers, and green-house and stove plants.-^ Many 
which had just been introduced find a place in these books, such 
as the Rhododejtdron Ponticum, Azalea nudiflora, or " American 
upright honeysuckle," as Hanbury calls it; Andromeda polifolia; 
varieties of Allspice [Calycanthus), of Sumach {Rhus), and of 
Magnolia {grandiflora and others) ; the snowdrop tree (Halesia) , 
Hydrangeas, and Spiraeas, and other hardy plants. There 
were also many additions to the half-hardy and stove plants — 
Crinum capense, or " lily Asphodel," and the more tender 
Belladonna lily {Amaryllis Belladonna). The Scarborough lily 

^ Complete Body of Planting and Gardening, by Wm. Hanbury, 1770. 
2 vols., folio. 



268 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

{Vallota purpurea) appeared about this time ; the same kind of 
story being told of its origin as of that of the Guernsey lily 
[Nerine sarniensis) , which was said to have grown in Guernsey 
from bulbs washed ashore from a wreck of a ship from Japan 
about 1659. The camellia or " Japanese rose " {Camellia 
japonica) was grown by the middle of the eighteenth century. 
The "gardenia, or the Cape Jasmine" {Gardenia fl-orida), 
Plumbago {rosea), and other " tender sorts of leadwort," the 
Gloriosa superha and AUamanda cathartica were among the 
climbing plants which adorned the stove before the dawn of 
the nineteenth century. 

The rage for landscape-gardening did not check the progress 
of fruit-growing. The kitchen garden was removed from sight, 
and when possible to a considerable distance, yet within it 
fruit-trees were receiving proper attention, and some of the 
earlier trials of cross fertilization were made in this direction. 
" By this process," wrote a well-known gardener, " we have 
given to the hardy pears of the North all the richness and 
delicacy of those of the South," and " to watery grapes the 
perfume of the muscat."^ The literature of the orchard was 
also carried on by able hands. Speechly, gardener to the 
Duke of Portland, was the author of treatises on the pine and 
the vine. He describes fifty of the varieties of grapes grown 
at Welbeck, and mentions many of the fine vines to be seen 
then in England.^ The Black Hamburgh at Valentine, in 
Essex, the parent of the Hampton Court one, yielded so much 
fruit that the gardener frequently made £100 a year by selling 
the bunches. A vine growing at Northallerton outside a house 
in 1789 covered 137 square yards of wall.^ He notices the 
vineyards near Bath, also those of Sir William Basset, in 
Somerset, who made some hogsheads of wine annually, and the 
Hon. Charles Hamilton, at Pain's Hill (the famous landscape 
garden), made wine from " Burgundy " and " black cluster " 
grapes, which sold for 7s. 6d. to los. the bottle. Speechly 
himself grew a famous bunch of grapes at Welbeck, in 1781, 

^ John Frederick Wood, Midland Florist, 1848. 
^ Culture of the Vine, by Wm. Speechly. York, 1790. 
^ Dr. Fowler has told nie that a very large vine covering a house-wall 
now exists in Northallerton, which may be the one here referred to. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 269 

which weighed 19I pounds, and measured 20 inches in dia- 
meter. It was sent by the Duke of Portland to the Marquess 
of Rockingham, carried by men, like the spies returning from 
the promised land. Early in this century a vine was brought 
from abroad and planted at Cannon Hall, Yorkshire, which 
has since produced the well-known variety bearing that name. 
Haynes wrote on the strawberry, gooseberry, and raspberry. 
The strawberry was being much improved, and new and large 
varieties were produced by crossing the Virginian with the 
Chilian, a species introduced early in the eighteenth century. 
Old-fashioned gardens still retained the hautboy {Fragaria 
elatior) , now so rarely to be seen, having been entirely superseded 
by the larger American species, but it still held its own during 
the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1848 " Myatt's 
new Fertilized Hautboy strawberry " received much praise, 
although about the same time " Myatt's British Queen " was 
accounted the best strawberry grown. This Myatt was a well- 
known nursery^man, and vegetables brought out by him are 
still in commerce, such as " Myatt's ash-leaf " potato. His 
name will remain familiar to Londoners, who know nothing of 
the worth of his produce, from " Myatt's Fields," the public 
park in Camberwell, on the site of his nursery garden. He 
greatly improved many fruits and vegetables, and grew the 
" Victoria " plum, which he found as a seedling in a cottage 
garden in Sussex. Gooseberries were in high favour, and new 
varieties made their appearance every season, and the sizes 
and weights of the berries were carefully compared and 
recorded.^ 

Pineapples were grown in all large gardens where hot-houses 
were kept up. The process necessary to produce pines was 
both lengthy and costly. The usual method took three years, 
and the " New Providence " and other very large varieties 
required this treatment. The first year was passed in the 
" propagation or nursing pit," the next in the " successive 
pit," and the third in the fruiting-house, which had to be 
larger, and kept at a higher temperature. The shorter or 
" Biennial course," specially suited to the " Queen " pine, was 

^ See Midland Florist and Horticulturist, conducted by John Frederick 
Wood, 1847 and following years. 



270 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

first recommended by Abercrombie.^ Pineries continued to 
exercise gardeners' skill and patience until rapid communica- 
tion enabled pines to be brought from the West Indies far more 
cheaply than it was possible to grow them, and then other 
uses were soon found for the old pine-pits. 

A fine work on fruit-trees, with well-drawn and coloured 
plates, by Brookshaw, Pomona Britannica, 1817, is principally 
taken from the fruit grown in the royal gardens at Hampton 
Court. In this book, besides some varieties which were then 
quite new, there are drawings of many of the old favourites. 
The " Catherine Pear " is figured and described as ripening 
in August, " sweet and juicy, with a degree of musky flavour : 
but at best is considered as a common pear." " The old 
Newington Peach," " Duke Cherry," " Norfolk Beefin Apple," 
" Red Streak Pippin," and many others are still favourites, 
and of Tradescant's Cherry, Brookshaw writes : " I am doubt- 
ful whether we have a better black cherry than this, and yet 
it is so very scarce, and so little known, that it would be the 
most difficult task to find it. It is a cherry that was raised 
by Sir John Tradescant, gardener to King Charles I., different 
in shape from any other black cherry ; and its flavour is un- 
like that of any other cherry ; it ripens about 20th June." 
The history such as this of many fruits and vegetables has been 
handed down by PhiUips,^ who was the author of several 
valuable works on the subject. Another gardener who turned 
his attention chiejfly to fruit-trees was William Forsyth (1737- 
1804), who succeeded Miller as Curator of the Chelsea garden, 
and was afterwards appointed Royal gardener at Kensington. 
His works on fruit-trees and the best methods of training and 
pruning went through many editions. He is said to have 
done more for the improvement of fruit culture than any other 
gardener, although Knight disagreed with him on some of his 
methods of treating trees. Thomas Andrew Knight, President 
of the Horticultural Society, was himself an improver of fruit, 
especially of apples. He produced the Grange Apple in 1802, 
a cross between the golden and the orange pippin. George 

^ The Fruit, Flower, and Kitchen Garden, by Patrick Neill, 1840. 
^ Pomariitm Britannicum, 1820 ; History of Cultivated Vegetables, 1822 ; 
Sylva Florifera, 1823 ; Flora Historica, 1824, etc. All by Henry Phillips. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 271 

Johnson, the historian of gardening, dedicated his work to 
Knight, and speaks of him in glowing terms as one " who 
unites to a knowledge of the Practices of Gardening the most 
perfect knowledge of the sciences that assist it,"^ To " this 
distinguished vegetable physiologist " the Horticultural Society 
owed its origin. Being born in Herefordshire, in 1759, and 
brought up in the midst of orchards, he began early in life to 
watch the growth of trees, and try experiments. He felt the 
want of some stimulus to horticulture, and thought the forma- 
tion of a Society " whose object should be the improvement 
of Horticulture in all its branches "^ would have that effect. 
Accordingly, with the co-operation of Sir Joseph Banks, he 
organized the Horticultural Society, and a meeting to in- 
augurate it was held on March 7th, 1804. The first President 
was the Earl of Dartmouth, John Wedgewood the first 
Treasurer, and Cleeve the first Secretary, who was soon super- 
seded by R. A. Salisbury (born 1761, died 1829). Price, the 
Clerk of the Linnsean Society, was also engaged as Clerk to 
the New Horticultural. In 1809, on April 17th, the charter 
of incorporation was signed by King George the Third. The 
next year the first number of the Transactions was brought 
out. These quarto volumes were elaborately got up, and were 
so costly that the sum spent on them by 1830 amounted to 
£25, 250.^ In 1811, on the death of the Earl of Dartmouth, 
Thomas Andrew Knight was elected President. Under his 
energetic presidency the affairs of the Society prospered. In 
1818 their first experimental gardens were started at Kensing- 
ton and at Ealing, but these were discontinued when the 
Society obtained a long lease of the Chiswick gardens four 
years later, and carried on their experiments there. 

About the same time the Society began its greatest work, 
which was not only the receiving of plants from abroad, but 
the sending out of collectors also. The first plant of Wistaria 
{Wistaria sinensis) was sent from China, in 18 18, by John 
Reeves. He was tea inspector there for nearly twenty years, 
and corresponded with Sir Joseph Banks. The original 

^ History of English Gardening, by Geo. W. Johnson, 1829. 
^ The Book of the Royal Horticultural Society, by Andrew Murray, 1863. 
^ From notes kindly furnished by Mr. Jolin Weathers, the Assistant- 
Secretary to the Society. 



272 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

specimen is still at Chiswick, and other Chinese plants — 
peonies, roses, and chrysanthemums — were received there 
about the same time. The first collector sent out by the 
Society was George Don, who went to West Africa, and on to 
South America, in 1822-23. He was bom in 1798, and died 
in 1856, and was son of George Don, of Forfar, and brother of 
David Don, who were also both botanists. John Forbes was 
sent to East Africa the same year ; he died while going up the 
Zambesi, but not before he had despatched home many new 
species. John Potts, who went in search of plants in China 
and the East Indies, also died from the effects of the climate. 
John Dampier Parks followed him to China in 1823, and found 
a number of plants there, and James Roe searched successfully 
in America and the Sandwich Islands. The well-known 
collector, David Douglas, was also employed by the Horticul- 
tural Society. He was born at Scone in 1799, and as a lad 
came under the notice of Sir WiUiam Hooker, then Professor 
at Glasgow. Hooker recommended him to Joseph Sabine, the 
Secretary of the Society, and Douglas was sent out to North 
America and California. The wealth of plants there discovered 
by him was unprecedented, flowers as well as trees. The 
number of conifers he sent home was so astonishing he wrote 
on one occasion to Hooker : " You will begin to think that I 
manufacture Pines at my pleasure." Besides the well-known 
Douglas pine {Pseudotsuga {Abies) Douglasii), he enriched this 
country with many others — Pinus Lambertiana, Pinus insignis, 
Pinus ponderosa, Pinus Sabiniana, A bies (Picea) nobilis, Pinus 
grandis, the beautiful Taxodium sempervirens — and many more 
which now adorn Pinetums and woods in all parts of England. 
At Dropmore there is a Douglas pine grown from seed given by 
the Horticultural Society to Lord Grenville in 1827. The tree 
was planted out in 1830, and in 1886 was 124 feet high, with 
a girth of 15 feet. Besides these wonderful conifers, Douglas 
sent home many other plants,^ among them the red-flowering 
Ribes, now so common, also Calochorti, Clarkias, Gaillardias, 
Godetias, Collinsias, Lupines, Eschscholtzias, Mimuli, and 
Pentstemons. He introduced altogether 217 new species, 

^ The plants are described by Hooker, Flora Boreali Americana, and 
in the Botanical Magazine. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 273 

After many years of search in America, he went to seek more 
treasures in the Sandwich Islands, and met his death in a very 
sad way soon after his arrival there in 1834. He fell into a 
deep hole cut by natives for catching wild cattle, and was 
killed by one of the animals in it. Such a tragic end to one 
who had done so much did not deter others from risking their 
lives in pursuit of plants in strange countries. More pines were 
collected in California by Theodor Hartweg, Pinus Ben- 
thamiana, Pinus Devoniana, and others ; also Lupines, Ber- 
berries, and Fuchsias, and several Achimenes, were discovered 
by him. 

Perhaps the most successful of all adventurous collectors 
was Robert Fortune. He was born in 1813, and died in 1880, 
He first entered the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, and was 
subsequently superintendent of the hot-houses at Chiswick. In 
1842, he started for China, after the conclusion of the war, 
and during the years which followed he was constantly sending 
home fresh treasures. Some of the best-known garden flowers 
were found by him : Anemone japonica,.Dielytra (or Dicentra) 
spectabilis, Kerria japonica : varieties of Prunus, Viburnum, 
Spiraea, and many Azaleas and Chrysanthemums ; Gardenia 
Fortunei, Daphne Fortunei, Berberis Fortunei, Forsythia 
viridissima, Weigela rosea, Jasminum nudiflorum, the white 
variety of Wistaria, and many other valuable plants. His 
greatest feat was to go to Loo Chow, disguised as a Chinaman, 
and there he obtained the double yellow rose, which he first 
saw covering a wall in a mandarin's garden, and the fan- 
leafed or Chusan palm, which bear his name. After the 
second Chinese War a fresh impetus was given to enterprise, 
and steadily during the middle of the century a stream of new 
plants continued to pour in from the Far East. Gradually the 
glorious lilies of Japan made their appearance. There was a 
thrill of pleasure when Lili^mi auratum was first shown, and 
a year or two later — in 1867 — the sight of Azalea mollis was 
hardly less welcome. Soon after hardy bamboos, Japanese 
maples and Iris began to arrive, but it was only during the 
last twenty years of the century that they became cheap 
enough to be within the compass of small gardeners. The 
importation of them in large quantities then began, 60,000 

18 



274 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

to 80,000 bulbs frequently arriving in one consignment. 
Many well-known species were sent home first by Charles 
Maries, who collected for Veitch in Japan and China about 
1877-79, ^■^^ who afterwards became superintendent of the 
Gwalior gardens, until his death in 1902. Primula Ohconica 
and Hydrangea rosea are perhaps his two best-known im- 
portations. 

India and Burmah furnished a wide field for the plant col- 
lector, and a very large number of plants came from there 
during the first half of the nineteenth century. Researches 
in those countries were greatly facilitated by the encourage- 
ment botany received from the East India Company. The 
botanical garden at Calcutta was a centre of activity, and its 
influence was felt far into the Western world. Owing to the 
energy of the three eminent Superintendents, Dr. William 
Roxburgh, who had charge of the garden from 1793 to 1814 ; 
Dr. Nathaniel Wallich, from 1815 to 1856 ; and Dr. Hugh 
Falconer, who was in India from 1830 to 1855, and took over 
the garden in 1848, the country round was explored, and the 
new-found plants were cultivated under their supervision in 
the botanical gardens, and from thence despatched to adorn 
the green-houses of England. The three thick folios of por- 
traits of rare plants, by Wallich,-^ gives some idea of the 
wonders first brought to light by the Calcutta garden and its 
staff. In 1847 Sir Joseph Hooker, who had already explored 
the Arctic regions with Ross, turned towards the tropics, and 
during the three following years made the most adventurous 
journeys in Sikkim, Tibet, and Nepaul. Much of his road lay 
through the country of hostile native rulers, who stopped his 
food-supplies and put countless obstacles in the way of his 
progress. In spite of bad weather, biting cold, and the 
roughest of travelling in high altitudes and inhospitable regions, 
he persevered, and was able to enrich English gardens by 
wondrously beautiful Rhododendrons and rock-loving plants 
from the fringes of the eternal snows of the Himalayas. 

The thirst for plant-collecting seems frequently to have been 
shared by several members of a family. Veitch, the famous 
firm of nurserymen of Exeter and Chelsea, who employed many 
^ PlantcB AsiaticcB Rariores, 1830-32. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 275 

collectors, and introduced a very considerable number of new 
plants,^ were themselves also travellers. John Gould Veitch 
was especially successful in his researches during the sixties 
in China, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia. Three sets 
of brothers were remarkable for their self-sacrificing energy. 
The two brothers Lobb collected for Veitch for over twenty 
years between 1840 and i860, and introduced many new 
things. Thomas Lobb confined his researches to the Old 
World, in India, Burmah, and the Philippines, and discovered 
many new orchids. William Lobb worked chiefly in South 
America and California, and sent home for the first time a 
plentiful supply of the cones and seeds of many of the conifers 
discovered by Douglas, besides finding new ones, particularly 
the gigantic Sequoia or Wellingtonia, and the Thuia called 
after him. He succeeded also in obtaining Lapageria rosea, 
Escallonia macrantha, Desfontainea spinosa, Berberis Dar- 
winii, and many other new plants now well known. Then 
there were the brothers Cunningham, Allan (1791-1839) and 
Richard. They both collected for Kew, chiefly in Australia, 
and held the post in turn of Superintendent of the botanical 
gardens at Sydney. Richard, the younger brother, met with 
a tragic death at the hands of the natives in the interior of 
Australia, while making a botanical expedition in the water- 
less Bush in 1835. The brothers Drummond were also adven- 
turous botanists at about the same time. Thomas Drum- 
mond's field of work was North America, both the Arctic 
regions of Canada and in Texas, and he succumbed to illness 
on his travels in Cuba in 1835. His brother James explored 
in Western Australia, and died there in 1863, after being for 
many years Curator of the botanical gardens at Perth. 

Both Tropical and South Africa have also contributed an 
immense number of plants to stoves and green-houses. John 
Forbes, already referred to, was one of the earliest collectors, 
but little was done in the more tropical districts of darkest 
Africa before Sir John Kirk began to popularize in England 
new plants from those regions. He travelled with Living- 
stone between 1858 and 1863, when he went up the Shir6 
River and discovered Lake Nyassa. When later he became 

^ Hortus Veitchi, igo6. 

18—2 



276 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Consul-General, he continued actively botanizing, and estab- 
lished and maintained at his own expense an experimental 
garden at Zanzibar. Not only did he succeed in introducing 
many valuable economic plants into Central Africa, but sent 
a large number of flowers home. A successful pioneer in 
Central Africa was John Buchannan, who went in 1876 as 
Agriculturalist to the Church of Scotland Mission to Nyassa- 
land, and sent 1,500 dried specimens to Kew, and also intro- 
duced new living species to this country. Another worker in 
the mission-field who was also a collector was Alexander 
Carson, who died the same year as Buchannan (1896). Other 
Central African plants have been sent home more recently by 
Sir Harry Johnson and Mr. Alexander Whyte. 

One of the earliest workers at the Cape was James Bowie, 
who was sent out by Kew in 1817, and died there in 1869. 
During the early years of the century great numbers of heaths 
were sent home, also Mesembryanthemum, Polygalas, and Gera- 
niums. A good assortment of Cape plants were already in culti- 
vation by the end of the eighteenth century. Among the bulbs 
which had arrived about 1790, or even earlier, were Sparaxis, 
Ixias, Agapanthus, Crinums {capense or longi folium), some of 
the Nerines, and the Arum lily. In spite of the constant 
influx of plants from the Cape, it is rather astonishing to find 
that some bulbs now extremely common did not put in an 
appearance in this country till towards the end of the century. 
Freesias, now so popular, only came in 1875 ; Monthretia 
Pottsii, which now grows like a weed in many places, not 
until two years later ; and the finer species of Crinum — Moorei 
in 1874, and the garden hybrid Powellii, which was produced 
from it, as late as 1888. 

South America contributed a number of striking plants to 
the stove during this great influx of flowers from all parts of 
the world. The immense water-lily, afterwards named Vic- 
toria regia, was first discovered in 1801, but was not generally 
known till forty years later, and seeds did not germinate in 
this country before 1849. Soon after the gigantic dimensions 
of the plant, as grown at Kew, caused a sensation which was 
not confined to the gardening world. The collector George 
Gardiner found no less than 7,000 species in Brazil, some of 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 277 

which soon became popular in this country, such as Ahutilon 
striata, which came in 1837. The Poinsettias arrived about 
the same time, and Dipladenias soon after. Eucharis ama- 
zonica was brought in 1856, and Bougainvilleas a few years 
later, and TropcBolum speciosum in 1846. Veitch, of Exeter, 
was awarded a certificate of merit for this last at a Royal 
Horticultural Show in 1847, and this " showy Indian Cress " 
was welcomed as a great acquisition to green-house climbers. 
How astonished would those who first rejoiced over it be at 
the sight of a Scotch shooting-lodge or farm-house perfectly 
smothered with its flaming blossoms ! 

Among enthusiastic discoverers of new plants during the 
nineteenth century, Frederick W. Burbidge must not be for- 
gotten, although his useful contributions to garden literature, 
and his work for many years as Curator of the gardens of 
Trinity College, Dublin, are perhaps better known than his 
floral travels.^ The journey he undertook to Borneo was 
fruitful in new species, and besides bringing home a plentiful 
supply of orchids and new Pitcher plants {Nepenthes Burbidgei, 
N. Rajah, and N. hicalcarata), he added a beautiful genus to 
hot-house plants named " Burbidgea." Not only the farthest 
parts of the earth have been ransacked to fill English gardens, 
but the wilder countries nearer home have contributed their 
share. Asia Minor had proved a fruitful source in the sixteenth 
century, but after three hundred years it still had something 
to disclose, when Mr. Edward Whittall penetrated its more 
mountainous districts. Some of the charming big snowdrops, 
and the large-sized " Glory of the Snow " {Chionodoxa gigantea 
and Alleni), and other spring-flowering bulbs, were found by 
him on the high tableland of the interior about 1890, and are 
already quite at home in England. 

The work of collecting in all countries continued with un- 
abated vigour all through the nineteenth century, and it would 
be impossible in a general history even to name all the botanists 
who were engaged in the work, or to mention half the plants 
this country owes to them. In addition to English workers, 

* Cultivated Plants : Their Propagation and Improvement, by F. W. 
Burbidge. Blackwood, 1877, etc. The Gardens of the Sun, 1879, gives 
an account of his travels. 



278 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

many foreigners have been engaged in the same quest, and 
Enghsh gardens benefited equally by their discoveries. 

The number of roses in our gardens now is infinite, and a 
very large proportion only became known in this country 
during last century. In addition to the old-fashioned species, 
the Gallica, the Damask, Sulphurea, Scotch, Austrian, Moss, 
Sempervirens, and Musk, there are now many more species, 
besides endless hybrids. Most of the new species have come 
from Eastern Asia. The little Banksian Rose came from 
China in 1807, and smaller Fairy Rose in 1810 ; the Tea- 
scented Rose about the same time. Monthly Roses in 1789, 
and multiflora in 1822. Since then numerous varieties have 
been added — Boursault's, Noisette, Polyantha, Bourbon, and 
so on. In the Catalogue of the great nurseryman, Loddiges, 
in Hackney, in 1826, there are " no less than 1,393 species and 
varieties of Roses," numbered as existing in their nurseries, 
and Lee, of Hammersmith, also had great quantities. Ever 
since then roses have been multiplying yearly. Before 1850 
many roses which still hold their own, such as Devoniensis or 
Souvenir de la Malmaison, were already being grown. In 1861- 
1862 Paul^ brought out as many as sixty-two new varieties, 
and during the next ten years he added many more, including 
such favourites as Marechal Niel, Louis Van Houtte, and Paul 
Neron. This profusion of roses is still being added to year 
by year by growers in this country, and also largely by im- 
portations from abroad, particularly from France. Several 
conspicuous classes were added to the already lengthy list 
towards the end of the century. " Lord Penzance " hybrid 
briars were a new departure, and even more conspicuous were 
the numerous freely-blooming ramblers, such as " Turner's 
Crimson " and " Dorothy Perkins," and many others, which 
have transformed the aspect of summer gardens. The Rosa 
rugosa of Japan, although brought from there in 1845, was not 
much cultivated until some forty years later, and equally dis- 
tinct are the fresh strains developed from Rosa Wichuriana. 
The roses in favour during the middle of the century inclined 
towards stiffness, and growers aimed at extremely double, 
evenly circular blooms, with sweet scent and strong colours. 

^ The Rose-Garden, by Wm. Paul. Ninth edition, 1888. 




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NINETEENTH CENTURY 279 

In the last two decades a different style, with flowers less 
compact, in delicate gradations of shades, were produced in 
bewildering quantities. 

The Dahlia,^ a native of Mexico, was first introduced in 1789 
from Spain by Lady Bute, but was lost and reintroduced in 
1804 by Lady Holland, and twenty years later the craze for 
these flowers reached its height. The Fuchsia appeared in 
this country within the first five-and-twenty years of this 
century, although named by Plumier after Fuchs about a 
hundred years earlier. The story is told of how Lee saw a 
Fuchsia plant in a window of a small house in Wapping. He 
was so struck with the flower that he went in and asked the 
old woman to whom it belonged whether she would sell it to 
him. She, however, at first refused to part with it, as it had 
been sent to her by her husband, who was a sailor, but was 
persuaded to let him have it when he offered her eight guineas, 
and promised to give her two of the first plants he reared. 
He succeeded in getting some three hundred cuttings to strike, 
and presented the old woman with her share, while the rest, 
with their graceful hanging flowers, astonished the visitors to 
his Nursery, and brought him in a profit of about ;^300.^ 

That which perhaps would most astonish a gardener of the 
fifteenth century, could he but for one moment see it, would 
be an orchid house. Numerous as orchids are to-day, they 
nearly all have been imported during the last sixty years. 
There are still tracts of country which have not been searched, 
but most of the orchid-growing portions of the globe have been 
ransacked, and these glorious plants packed off by thousands 
to this country, leaving in some cases their native habitats bare. 
One reads accounts of whole districts being denuded of these 
treasures ; for instance, a certain locality, once the home of 
Miltonia vexillaria, was so pillaged that the woods in the 
vicinity " have become pretty well cleared." During one 
search for Odontoglossum crispum, when ten thousand plants 
were collected, four thousand trees were cut down to obtain 

^ Named after Dahl, the Swedish botanist, and quite distinct from 
the Dalea called after Dr. Samuel Dale (1659-1739). When Dahlias 
were first popular in England, their name was pronounced with a broad- 
sounding " ah." 

^ Notes and Queries, September, 1894. 



28o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

them ; the camp of the explorers was moved on week by week as 
they exhausted the plants in their neighbourhood.^ The sight 
of this glorious wealth of flowers, which has gladdened many 
orchid-hunters, will be denied to future generations, if the 
searchers are not more moderate in their demands on the 
virgin forests of the Old and New World. 

The first tropical orchid which flowered in this country was 
a specimen of Bletia verecunda, which was sent from Providence 
Island, one of the Bahamas, in 173 1, to Peter Collinson.^ In 
Miller's Dictionary two or three tropical orchids are mentioned, 
and some were grown by him at Chelsea. He says of the 
Vanilla, which was sent to him " from Carthagena in New 
Spain," that " this plant flowered in the Chelsea Garden, but, 
wanting its proper support, it lived but one year." In 1778 
Dr. John Fothergill brought home two species from China, one 
of which, Phaius grandifolius, flowered soon after in the stove 
of his niece, Mrs. Hird, at Apperley Bridge, in Yorkshire. In 
1787 Epidendrn7n cochleatum flowered at the Royal Gardens, 
Kew,^ and Epidendrum fragrans the following year. Soon 
after the beginning of this century several species were cul- 
tivated for sale by the Loddiges at Hackney, and this firm 
held for many 3^ears a conspicuous place among orchid 
growers. As early as 1812 they grew a plant of Oncidium 
bifolium, which was brought from Monte Video, and about 
the same year the first of the Vandas, Aerides, and Dendro- 
biums were sent from India by Dr. Roxburgh. Although 
plants of many orchids were coming to this country during 
the first thirty years of this century, so little was known of 
their native places and their conditions of life that their 
cultivation was extremely difficult, and orchid growers met 
with constant failures. A house was set apart for them at 
Kew, and Lindley also, at the Horticultural Society, by careful 
study of their habits, tried to discover the right treatment. 
One of the earliest private orchid-houses was that of the Earl 
Fitzwilliam, at Wentworth Woodhouse, the genus Miltonia 

^ Travels and Adventures of an Orchid-Hunter, by Albert Millican, 
1891. 

^ W. B. Hemsley, Gardener's Chronicle, 1887. 

^ A Manual of Orchidaceous Plants, Part X. By James Veitch and 
Sons, 1894. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 281 

being named in his honour. His gardener, Joseph Cooper, 
was one of the first successful growers. In 1833 the orchid 
collection at Chatsworth was begun. The Duke of Devonshire 
procured plants from the East, and Paxton, who was his 
gardener at the time, was enabled to cultivate many success- 
fully, and publish the interesting records in the Magazine of 
Botany, which he edited. The orchid-growers since then that 
have been successful are too numerous to mention. Such 
collections as that of Sir Trevor Lawrence, Major Holford, Mr. 
Joseph Chamberlain, or Baron Schroeder, are among the 
wonders of the modern garden. 

The history of the introduction of many of these orchids 
reads like an exciting adventure or fairy-tale. The story of 
the lost orchid Cattleya lahiata vera is known to all orchid 
lovers. The plant was originally sent home from Brazil to 
Dr. Lindley by Mr. W. Swainson, as a packing round some 
lichens, in 1818,^ and Lindley described and named it in 
memory of Mr. Cattley, a great horticulturalist. For years 
after that date other species were sent home, which passed for 
the true labiata, until it was discovered that the vera no 
longer existed in cultivation, and that its native home was for- 
gotten. For fifty years it was the aim of all collectors to find this 
treasure again. By chance at last, in 1889, some plants were for- 
warded home to M. Moreau, of Paris, from whom Messrs. Sanders 
learnt its habitat, and sent off in search of it, and soon all 
orchid growers were able to add the long-lost treasure to their 
collections. Many fruitless voyages have been made to pro- 
cure these floral wonders, and frequently the collector has 
at last met with them when least expected. One plant of 
Cypripedium Curtisi was sent home by Mr. Curtis from Penang 
in 1882, and no more were forthcoming, until collectors 
despaired of ever finding it. At last an orchid-hunter called 
Ericsson, climbing a mountain in Sumatra, took shelter in a 
little hut. On the walls he saw among the names of the 
travellers who had rested there a drawing of the very flower 
he was in search of, and underneath was written, " C. C.'s con- 
tribution to the adornment of the house." He at once set to 
work to look for it in the neighbourhood, and at length he found 

^ About Orchids. By Frederick Boyle, 1893. 



282 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

it in a most unlikely place, just as he was about to return home 
in despair. Such stories could be multiplied ad infinitum, as 
every year collectors are going through toilsome expeditions 
in order to procure these plants. One firm alone, Messrs. 
Sanders, at St. Albans, have often as many as twenty collectors 
working at one time. In the spring of 1894 they had two in 
BrazU, two in Columbia, two in Peru and Ecuador, one in 
Mexico, one in Madagascar, one in New Guinea, three in India, 
Burmah, and Straits Settlements. It is much to be regretted 
that orchid-growers of this country are so exacting in their 
demands that, as has been already pointed out, some species 
are becoming extinct in their native habitats. In 1890 the 
number of species which flowered at Kaw was 766, and besides 
all these, imported from tropical lands, the numerous hybrids 
bi ought out each year by large firms, such as Veitch, Bull, 
or Low, or from private collections, must be taken into 
account to form an estimate of the numbers of orchids in 
cultivation in England. The value of these orchid collections 
is immense. When some of the finest specimens are gathered 
together at a show, such as that for many years held in the 
grounds of the Temple by the Royal Horticultural Society, 
the aggregate worth of the plants has been computed at about 
;£ioo,ooo. New varieties pass hands privately for very large 
sums, while at public auctions as much as a thousand guineas 
have been given for a small plant. ^ 

In the hasty review that has been taken of the progress of 
Horticulture, the prominent position of the Royal Gardens at 
Kew has not been properly pointed out. They were begun 
by the Princess of Wales, mother of George III., about 1760. 
In the extremely quaint and original poem, The Botanic 
Garden, in 1791, Erasmus Darwin alludes to the wonders of 
Kew in his usual stilted verse : 

" So sits enthroned, in vegetable pride. 
Imperial Kew by Thames' glittering side ; 
Obedient sails from realms unfurrow'd bring 
For her the unnam'd progeny of Spring ; 

^ On March 22, 1906, at Messrs. Prothero and Morris's, 122 lots realized 
;^5,342. Odontoglossum crispum Pittianum (three bulbs with two 
leaves) fetched 1,150 guineas, Odontoglossum crispum F. K. Sander 
(one bulb, one growth) 800 guineas, etc. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 283 

Attendant Nymphs her dulcet mandates hear. 
And nurse in fostering arms the tender year ; 
Plant the young bulb, inhume the living seed. 
Prop the weak stem, the erring tendril lead ; 
Or fan in glass-built fanes the stranger flowers. 
With milder gales, and steep with warmer showers. 
Delighted Thames through tropic umbrage glides, 
And flowers antarctic, bending o'er his tides ; 
Drinks the new tints, the sweets unknown inhales. 
And calls the sons of Science to his vales." 

The importance of Kew gradually increased under the manage- 
ment of William Aiton. This able gardener was born in 173 1, 
and obtained the appointment of Botanical Superintendent 
at Kew through the influence of Philip Miller. He brought 
out a catalogue of the plants grown at Kew in 1789. To each 
plant Aiton added the native habitat, and the date of intro- 
duction, and records, from his own recollection, those that 
were grown by Philip Miller at Chelsea. He identified those 
introduced by Peter Collinson with the help of his son Michael ; 
while James Lee, of Hammersmith, and Knowlton, who had 
been gardener to James Sherard, also gave him what information 
they could. The plants are arranged on the Linnaean system, 
and include between five and six thousand species, this number 
being raised to eleven thousand in the second edition, published 
by the younger Aiton in 1810-1813, to which Dryander and 
R. Brown largely contributed. William Aiton died in 1793, and 
was succeeded by his son, William Townsend Aiton. In 1802 
the garden which had belonged to Kew House was joined to 
what was known as the Royal Garden at Richmond, which lay 
to the West, and various other alterations were carried out by 
Sir William Chambers, the designer of the " Pagoda." Kent 
did some of the laying-out, and Kew did not escape the hands 
of " Capability Brown." In 1841 a portion was first opened 
to the public, though only 15 out of the 75 acres ; the 
rest remained as a " wilderness," and was used as a game 
preserve by the King of Hanover until 1850. By the end of 
the century the gardens covered 400 acres, and instead of 
attracting some nine thousand visitors a year, more than a 
hundred times that number annually flocked thither. Under 
the directorships of Sir William Hooker, Sir Joseph Hooker, 
and Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, Kew has ever been rising 



284 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

to greater importance. Of the work of these men and the 
other eminent botanists of this century — Bentham, Lindley, 
Brown, Smith, Loudon, Henslow, Sowerby, and the great 
Darwin himself, and many others — it is impossible to speak 
at length, but it is to men such as these that the wonderful 
progress was due, to say nothing of those still living who 
are looked up to with respect and admiration by practical 
gardeners, not only in England itself, but throughout her vast 
dominions. Men trained at Kew are in charge of Botanical 
Gardens in every clime, and constant correspondence is kept 
up with over eighty such gardens in British Colonies and India 
alone. The work is ever increasing, and Kew is constantly 
replenished with novelties from these sources. 

Nearly a hundred years before botanical researches were 
carried on at Kew, scientists had been seeking to understand 
the anatomy and sexes of plants,^ and many practical gar- 
deners, such as Philip Miller, Bradley, and Fairchild, had 
succeeded in producing florists' varieties by hybridization, 
although their knowledge was most imperfect. As early as 
1793 Sprengel had put forth the theory^ of cross fertilization, 
but for forty years his suggestions were not followed up, and 
it was not until Darwin devoted himself to unravelling the 
mysteries, by long years of careful experiments, that the 
wonders became perfectly understood. He gradually proved 
that plants produced from cross fertilization were finer and 
more robust than those which came from self -fertilized seed. 
This was the case when the plants were dependent on the 
visits of insects, but equally true when they did not require 
their agency. The difference that could be effected in the vigour 
of plants according to the way in which they had been fertilized 
was thoroughly grasped after the fruits of Darwin's labours 
were given to the world in 1876,^ and within a few years, truths 
which were undreamt of in 1830 were taught in elementary 
textbooks. The gardener became possessed of a knowledge 
the far-reaching effects of which it is impossible to estimate. 

^ See pp. 198-200, also 233, 
* Das Entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur, 1793. 

^ Effects of Cross and Self Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom, by 
Charles Darwin, 1876. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 285 

The quantity of flowers available for the embellishment 
of gardens was multiplied with extraordinary rapidity. Not 
only were new species pouring in from every quarter of the 
globe, but no sooner were they in the hands of horticulturalists 
than garden or " florists' " varieties were added by the score. 
The florists' varieties of Begonia, Gloxinia, Geranium, Cycla- 
men, Cineraria, Primula, Streptocarpus, Carnations, Achi- 
menes. Chrysanthemum, Violas, Dahlias, Asters, Verbenas, 
Cannas, and many such-like things, were unknown during the 
early part of last century. Donald Beaton, writing his recol- 
lections in 1854 of his early life as a gardener, tells how he 
remembers seeing the first Petunia that ever flowered in this 
country at Lower Boughton, near Manchester, and the first 
Calceolaria in the Epsom Nursery. The institution of Shows 
and Awards of Merit has doubtless done much to stimulate 
the energy of florists and promote the production of new 
varieties. In Thomas Hogg's treatise on the culture of the 
carnation and other flowers in 1820, he submits the Rules of 
two " Societies of Florists," in Islington and Chelsea, which 
had been started some years previously for encouraging the 
cultivation of " Auriculas, Pinks, and Carnations." There 
were, he says, " several other societies of the same description 
in the neighbourhood of London, but these two are not only the 
most numerous in point of numbers, but likewise the most 
respectable in regard to the members composing them." The 
Rules of this Society are given at length. The subscription 
was £1 IIS. 6d. a year, and the value of the prizes, six in 
number, was presented to the successful candidates on Show 
Days. On the appointed days a dinner was held, and each 
member had to buy a dinner-ticket for the Auricula, the 
Carnation, and Pink shows. The flowers were judged by jthree 
members selected from among those present, and the flowers 
passed round the table while all were sitting at dinner, " be- 
ginning on the President's right hand, and returning on his 
left, in order that each person may distinctly view them." 
By 1850 a large number of such societies had been started, 
particularly in the Midlands. In Bradford, Ashton-under- 
Lyne, Leeds, Stockport, Leicester, Blackburn, Halifax, New- 
castle, and nearly all the manufacturing towns, the shows of 



286 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

local societies were held annually. Tulip shows were most 
frequent, as bulb culture was a favourite pursuit in the in- 
dustrial districts. It is thought that the taste was carried 
thither by the Flemish weavers, who in earlier times brought 
the love of these plants with them from the Low Countries. 
Next in popularity to tulips came the pinks, carnations, and 
picotees. The other florists' flowers most thought of in 1850 
were Auriculas and Ranunculus, then Dahlias, Pansies, Poly- 
anthus, Fuchsias, and Verbenas, and these were the plants 
most frequently shown. Many societies have been started 
since then to encourage the florist varieties of different classes 
of flowers. Perhaps the most conspicuous have been those in 
connection with the rose, and more recently the chrysanthe- 
mum, which now boast of National Societies. The Rose Show, 
held in London, annually attracts an immense concourse of 
rose-growers from every part of the kingdom. The National 
Chrysanthemum Society originated in the one at Stoke Newing- 
ton. That locality of London, which has for centuries been 
the haunt of gardeners, from the times of L'Obel and Fairchild, 
on to that of the Loddiges, has not forgotten its old traditions ; 
even in the midst of fog and smoke the dwellers in the East 
of London try to cultivate flowers. The chrysanthemum 
occupies much of their attention, and that they can cultivate 
them with success can be seen by the local Exhibitions. ■'^ 
Daffodils absorbed much attention during the second half of 
the century, and the family was greatly enlarged by the hybrids 
of Leeds, Backhouse, and Horsfield, whose work has been 
carried on by the Rev. G. H. Engleheart and others. Daffodil 
shows in many parts of England, particularly in the West and 
North- West, are largely attended by enthusiastic fanciers. 
The Horticultural Society held their first fete in 1831, and 
soon after the regular Exhibitions began. Since then their 
shows and those of the Botanical Society and of local societies 
in every town and county of England have become events of 
yearly, or almost weekly, occurrence, and the stimulus to 
floriculture promoted by these institutions must be apparent 

^ The shows of the Dalston and De Beauvoir Town Amateur Chrysan- 
themum Society, held annually, are an example of what care and atten- 
tion can achieve. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 287 

to all. The Botanical Society of London was incorporated 
in 1839. That part of the grounds devoted to the illustration 
of the Natural Orders was arranged by James de Carle Sowerby 
(son of the author of the fine work on English Botany), then 
Secretary to the Society, assisted by Dr. Frederick Farre and 
others. The ornamental part, designed by Marnoch, became a 
fashionable resort in the sixties. The first show for spring 
flowers was held there in 1862, and for many years this Society's 
" Floral Fetes " were extremely popular. 

The names given to florists' varieties are often justly com- 
plained of. Although " a rose with any other name would 
smell as sweet," it is not poetical to have to refer to one of 
the most charming of the tribe as " William Allen Richard- 
son." Yet the names are in themselves very often a kind 
of history. No one will deny that the finder of a new species 
should be remembered, even though it involves such a combina- 
tion as Lilium Maximowiczi, so it is only just that the producer 
of a florists' flower, whether an amateur, a firm, or a head- 
gardener, should be privileged to have their triumphs com- 
memorated. Thus such names for roses as " Dean Hole " 
or " Paul's carmine pillar," Gladiolus Brenchleyensis,^ or 
" Gilbert's green flesh melon," must be tolerated. Nursery- 
men who for a number of years have been devoted to the 
im.provement of a particular flower, have played such a part 
in that plant's history that their names deserve record. More 
Rhododendrons, for instance, are due to the firm of Waterer 
than to anyone else, and they will be kept in remembrance 
by one of their own hybrids, " Anthony Waterer." Barr, in 
the same way, who has done much to improve daffodils, will 
not be forgotten where Narcissus Barrii is planted, and so on. 
The names of celebrities of the day attached to a flower will 
often serve to date its appearance. The " Jenny Lind " 
picotee and the " Cerito " cineraria came out in 1848 ; the 
Henry Irving Daffodil and the " Lord Roberts " geranium, 
it is obvious, must have appeared about fifty years later. 

In the early days of showing plants and bringing out of florists' 
varieties much difficulty was often experienced by growers 

^ Gladiolus Brenchleyensis, a cross between Psittacinus floribundus, 
raised by Mr. Hooker, Brenchley, Kent {Midland Florist, 1848). 



288 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

wishing to hear of new improvements. Nurserymen's lists of 
seeds and plants were not then distributed broadcast, and a 
catalogue such as that of Loddige of Hackney in 1777 was a 
work of importance. This want of information led to the 
appearance of a number of periodicals. The first half of the 
century was remarkable for the quantity of beautifully got-up 
publications, many of them with exquisitely drawn and 
coloured illustrations of the rare and new plants which were 
being introduced. The Botanical Magazine was commenced 
even earlier, and has long ago kept its centenary,^ and still 
continues. Other works were not so long-lived, and it is 
indeed wonderful that many existed for as long as they did, 
considering the great expense of bringing them out, and their 
similarity. Among the most important were The Botanical 
Register, begun in 1815 by Sydenham Edwards, and continued 
from 1827 to 1847 by Lindley, and Maund's Botanic Garden, 
which came out in monthly parts from 1825 to 1850. Paxton's 
Magazine of Botany began in 1834, Harrison's Floricultural 
Cabinet from 1833 to 185 1. 

John Claudius Loudon was a most persevering writer, and 
besides his well-known encyclopaedias on gardening, plants, 
trees, shrubs, and agriculture, he started The Gardener's 
Magazine in 1826, and conducted it until his death in 1843. 
His works and those in which he was assisted by his wife 
covered a very wide field, and involved immense labour. This 
was an age when those who took to gardening did so in a most 
thorough manner. The result was a number of very capable 
men of high standing, whose equals it would be difficult to find 
nowadays. Some of those employed by the largest landowners 
came up to a very high standard, but as a whole gardeners 
were less proficient than at the present time. One reason 
for this was the serious trouble of obtaining reliable informa- 
tion on matters of culture. The leading gardeners experi- 
mented on all the new plants, and discovered their proper 
treatment, but for those who had not similar opportunities 
knowledge was difficult of acquisition. The foremost gardeners 
showed great boldness in the way they took new flowers in 
hand. Often their efforts were so successful that the feats 

^ Begun in 1787 by William Curtis. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 



289 



they performed were not repeated for many years. ^ It was 
to bring this enlightenment within the range of the smaller 
growerst hat The Gardener's Chronicle was started under the 
guidance of Lindley and Paxton in 1841.^ From the first 

^ The Amherstia nobilis, for instance, was flowered by Mrs. Lawrrence 
(the mother of Sir Trevor Lawrence, and a pioneer in orchid-growing) 
at Ealing in 1837, soon after its discovery in Burmah. A fine tree also 
flowered for some years continuously at Chatsworth soon after. The 
striking effect of this beautiful tree in blossom was not again seen until 
1887, when the plant in Lord Amherst of Hackney's garden at Didlington 
flowered profusely. 

^ The list of contributors announced in the prospectus of The Gar- 
dener's Chronicle is instructive, as giving the names of some of the 
horticulturalists that would carry weight with the gardening public at 
that time. The following is taken from the reprint of it in the " Jubilee " 
issue of the paper, January 3, 1891 : 



Professor Daubeny, of Oxford. 
Professor Graham, Edinburgh. 
Professor Royle, of King's College. 
George Barker, Esq., Birmingham. 
G. Bentham, Esq., Secretary to 

the Horticultural Society. 
Dr. Greville, Edinburgh. 
Mr. Cooper, gardener to the Earl 

Fitz William. 
Mr. Smith, gardener to the Earl 

of Hopetoun. 
Mr. Buchan, gardener to Lord 

Bagot. 
Mr. Mitchell, gardener to Lord 

Vernon. 
Mr. Errington, gardener to Sir P. 

Egerton. 
Mr. Baxter, of the Botanic Garden 

at Oxford. 
Mr. WooUey, gardener to the Duke 

of Sutherland. 
Dr. Horner, Hull. 
Mr. Mcintosh, gardener to the 

Duke of Buccleuch. 
Mr. Tillery, gardener to the Duke 

of Portland. 
Mr. Colhnson, gardener to the 

Marquess of Westminster. 
Mr. Scott, gardener to the Duke 

of Sutherland. 



Mr. Campbell, of the Botanic 
Garden at Manchester. 

Mr. Mearns, Zoological Garden, 
Manchester. 

Mr. Shepherd, of the Botanic 
Garden at Liverpool. 

Mr. Williamson, of the Botanic 
Garden at Sheffield. 

Mr. Beaton, gardener to Sir W. 
Middleton, Bart. 

Mr. Insleay, of Birmingham. 

Mr. Bailey, gardener to the Arch- 
bishop of York. 

Mr. Caie, gardener to the Duke of 
Bedford. 

Mr. Moffat, gardener to the Duke 
of Newcastle. 

Mr. R. Wilson, gardener to the 
Duke of Norfolk. 

Mr. Cameron, of the Botanic 
Garden at Birmingham. 

Mr. Marnoch, Curator of the 
Regent's Park Garden, etc. 

Mr. Mackay, of St. Helens. 

Mr. Perrin, of Aighburgh. 

Professor Henslow, of Cambridge. 

Sir W. T. Hooker, of Glasgow. 

The Hon. and Very Rev. W. Her- 
bert, Dean of Manchester. 

John Rogers, Esq. 

19 



290 



A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



the paper professed to be the gardeners' friend, and was 
welcomed by them, and it has been widely instrumental in 
diffusing cultural knowledge.^ It was much more in the style 
of the modern newspaper than any of its contemporaries. 
In its pages, shows were reported and commented on, new plants 
were described, new methods discussed, such things as " a new 
manure called guano " (which was mentioned in one of the first 
issues) were brought into public notice. At first it embraced 
Agriculture as well, and a few columns were also devoted to 
general news. These were abandoned in 1869, and Agriculture 
was left out in 1873. Most of the greatest botanists and Horti- 
culturalists of the day in turn contributed to the paper. Dr. 
MaxweU T. Masters succeeded Lindley as editor, and carried 
on the work until his death in 1907.^ The Gardener's Chronicle 
maintained its leading position, and soon had many imitators. 
The Garden was started many years later, and was edited by 
Mr, W. Robinson, and while under him became the chief organ 
of the " Wild Gardening " School. Before the end of the 
century a host of other weekly papers had arisen, and thus 



Mr. Frost, gardener to the Coun- 
tess of Granville. 

Mr. Jennings, gardener to the Earl 
of Derby. 

Mr. J. Wilson, gardener to the Earl 
of Surrey. 

Mr. Law, gardener to Lord Carlisle. 

Mr. Booth, gardener to Sir C. 
Lemon. 

Mr. Green, gardener to Sir E. 
Antrobus. 



Mr. Paxton, gardener to the Duke 

of Devonshire. 
Mr. Niven, of the Botanic Garden 

at Dublin. 
Mr. Smith, of the Botanic Garden 

at Hull. 
Mr. Appleby, gardener to T. 

Brocklehurst, Esq. 
Mr. Menzies, of Hope House, near 

Halifax. 
Mr. Whiting, of the Deepdene. 



This list by no means exhausted the names of contributors. It is 
interesting to note that Mr. James Bateman, of Knypersley, whose 
book on the OrchidacecB of Mexico and Guatemala came out in 1841, 
contributed a series of articles that year, and was still writing for the 
paper when it kept its Jubilee. 

^ It is interesting to note that the present institution known as the 
" Gardeners' Royal Benevolent " was started in 1841, and was at first 
called " Benevolent Institution for the Aged and Indigent Gardeners 
and their Widows." 

* For about a year Dr. J. Bretland Farmer was editor, and in 1908 
Dr. Frederick W. Keeble became chief editor, and Mr. R. Hooper 
Pearson managing editor. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 291 

the road to a knowledge of current horticulture lay open 
to all. 

The natural outcome of all this floral wealth was a complete 
change in the manner of gardening. For instance, a pinetum 
would never have been contemplated had not Douglas and 
Lobb discovered and sent home the seeds of a bewildering 
number of pines. One of the earliest to be made was at 
Dropmore ; that at Kew was begun by Sir Joseph Hooker in 
1843, and in all the larger gardens in the Kingdom pinetums 
were laid out during the twenty years which followed. The 
present generation is reaping the benefit of them, and really 
fine trees are to be seen in those early established. Naturally, 
little was known of the growth or habits of many of the newly 
imported pines, and years had to elapse before the age of the 
trees was sufficient for their style of growth to become apparent. 
Hence it unfortunately arose that mighty forest trees were 
planted in confined spots or amid uncongenial surroundings, or 
specimens were injured by overcrowding. But, on the whole, 
the early Victorian pinetums were well designed. The ex- 
citement caused by some of these new arrivals often led to their 
being planted to the exclusion of more suitable trees. The 
" Monkey Puzzle " or " Chili pine " [Araucaria imbricata) 
attracted much attention from its originality. A writer in 
1847^ describes how greatly he was impressed on seeing a plant 
of this 10 or II feet high in the Birmingham Botanical Garden 
— " the most indifferent spectator would be immediately struck 
with the singular beauty of its appearance "; and he goes on 
to declare that he considers " no gentleman's demesne com- 
plete without "it. From the numbers of this formal tree stuck 
about amid the most incongruous surroundings in many 
" demesnes," it can easily be seen how well this advice was 
followed. 

In all considerable gardens the green-houses and stoves were 
much added to. These latter were also called " Bark-stoves," 
as, to keep up a moist heat, banks of bark or other fermenting 
material were used instead of stages, and but little air was 
admitted. It was not infrequently the custom to devote a 
whole house to one kind of plants. In this way an immense 
^ In The Midland Florist. 

19 — 2 



292 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

number of Heaths from South Africa were grown. Over 200 
species were described by Andrews.'^ Loudon says, m 1830, 
that over 400 had been introduced, " the greater part by 
Masson, a collector who made two voyages to Africa at the 
King's [George TIL] expense." Some of these had been lost, 
owing to the diificulty of their propagation, but " upwards of 
250 sorts " were still to be obtained from nurserymen. In 1841 
Hugh Low and Co., advertising in The Gardener's Chronicle, 
offered 118 varieties for sale. All of these were largely grown, 
until plants more easy of culture than these hard-wooded 
things crowded them out. Geraniums were very much in 
favour. Fuchsias were extremely popular, and Camellias re- 
ceived a large share of attention. The new importations from 
Australia, or " New Holland " plants, were thus sometimes 
grown apart — Acacias, Mimosa, Eucalyptus, Melaleuca, Metro- 
sideros, Boronia, and so on. Cacti, Aloes, Mesembryanthemums, 
Crassulas, and other succulents were also largely grown. Soon, 
however, the green-houses and stoves became so overstocked 
that a new method of showing off tender plants came into 
fashion. This system, called " bedding out," remained practic- 
ally unchallenged from about 1820 to 1880. The brilliant flowers 
from tropical climes so much outshone some of the hardier 
ones that former generations had delighted in, that they were 
pushed on one side to make way for the new-comers. The 
smooth undulations of grass which the landscape school had 
pronounced the correct kind of " garden " to surround a house 
were straightway cut up by flower-beds, either dotted about 
or arranged in some geometrical pattern. Round and square 
beds alternately, or diamond or octagon, or some of a more 
fantastic shape, were placed anyhow on the grass, or in a circle 
or fan in front of the windows, or on either side of the gravel 
walks, and ribbon borders, with twists and cable patterns, 
generally formed part of the plan. Instead of " forthrights 
and allies," or " elegant lawns, groves, and clumps," the Vic- 
torian garden designer spoke of " flower plots," " dressed 
pleasure grounds," and extensive " and highly diversified 
shrubberies,"^ while the " approach " between Laurels and 

^ The Heathery, by Henry Andrews. 6 vols., 1804-14. 

' How to Lay out a Garden, by Edward Kemp. Third edition, 1864. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 293 

Rhododendrons, or " carriage-sweep," took the place of the 
" fore-court." Gardens in the pure landscape style, which had 
practically ignored the existence of flowers, were easily adapted 
to suit the new ideas. 

" A flower garden is now become the appendage of every 
fashionable residence," wrote a lady gardener in 1816,^ " and 
hence," she continues, " it is more frequently left to the 
direction of a gardener than arranged by the guidance of 
genuine taste in the owner ; and the fashionable novice, who 
has stored her borders from the catalogue of some celebrated 
name with a variety of rare species, who has procured innumer- 
able rose-trees, chiefly consisting of old and common sorts, 
brought into notice by new nomenclature, who has set apart 
a portion of ground for American plants, and duly placed 
them in bog soil, with their names painted on large-headed 
pegs, becomes disappointed when, instead of the brilliant 
glow of her more humble neighbour's parterre, she finds her 
own distinguished only by paucity of colour and fruitless 
expenditure. This will not," she adds, " produce a gay 
garden. . . . The cause of failure ... is the prevalent solici- 
tude for rarity and variety in preference to well-blended 
quantity." This lady dislikes a fashion then prevailing of 
" setting apart distinct borders for pinks, hepaticas, primulas, 
or any other favourite flower," but likes a " mingled flower 
garden," which Loudon says was far the most common. Her 
list of flowers suited to such mixed borders is fairly long, and 
includes old-fashioned as well as new plants. One plan of 
beds recommended for "a flower garden in the midst of 
pleasure grounds, surrounded by shrubs," of which a plate is 
given, shows beds 25 feet long, of a tadpole shape, 4 feet across 
at the widest part, twisted on the grass in various contortions, 
5 or 6 feet of grass between, with " baskets " set about, which 
were to be formed " by circular beds, surrounded by cast-iron, 
made to resemble the open edges of a basket, and painted of a 
very dark green colour." The ironwork or basket willow 
edging was not infrequently put round all the beds. Such an 
arrangement of flowers was sometimes directly in front of a 

^ The Florists' Manual, by a Lady (Maria Elizabeth Jackson). New 
edition, with additions, in 1827. 



294 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

house, but more often came as a surprise, being partially hidden 
by shrubs. Errington, a practical gardener of note, wished to 
" place the flower garden a little on one side of the principal 
walk, not far from the mansion, and yet so contrived as to be 
almost entirely concealed from both mansion and walk."^ 

Ornamental shrubs were so much on the increase that a 
shrubbery to show them off became a special feature. Lilacs, 
both the common and the Persian, had been grown in Eliza- 
bethan times, but many shrubs now familiar only appeared 
about 1840, Deutzias, Diervillas {=- Weigelias), and Pyrus 
Japonica, many new varieties of Spiraea, Veronica, and Ber- 
beris {Aquifolium, Darwinii, etc.), among the number ; and, in 
addition, crimson and double pink hawthorn were introduced 
as novelties about the same time. The " American Shrubbery" 
was frequently made at an earlier date. Loudon gives a list 
of the genera chiefly in favour in it about 1830, which includes 
Magnolia, Rhododendron, Azalea, Andromedas, Kalmia, Vac- 
cinium, and to these there might be added the Allspice family, 
the Hydrangeas, and many others. It is no wonder that a 
" shrubbery " was thought desirable. Generally the green- 
house was placed in the flower garden, surrounded by shrubs, 
unless it was " appended to the house." Although the incon- 
venience of such an isolated position was soon realized, even 
practical gardeners maintained the shrubbery was " the most 
proper situation for the green-house or conservatory."^ 

New roses, too, called for display, and therefore a rosery 
became necessary. In some retired spot, surrounded by ever- 
green bushes, the roses, dwarfs and standards, were arranged 
in neat little beds with wire arches between. Delightful old 
Damask, cinnamon, York and Lancaster, and moss roses, were 
given a place among the new hybrids. A certain amount of 
planting beside lakes or other artificial water was advised, but 
it did not occur to the designer who made the suggestion, or 
the gardener who carried it out, that Iris or water-loving plants 
were suitable. Kemp^ writes: on "small islands dogwood 
and Arbutus, or a thicket of common thorns. Hollies, or Furze, 

^ Loudon's Encydopcedia of Gardening, 5542. 

^ Nicol, quoted in Loudon's Encydopcedia. 

^ How to Lay Out a Garden, by Edward Kemp. Third edition, 1864. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 295 

would not be ineffective/' and " to produce broad effects of 
colour . . . double Furze, Rhododendrons, Laburnums, Lilacs, 
etc., and if within the pleasure-grounds, Hydrangeas, Dahlias, 
or even patches of showy geraniums, might be added." At 
the same time, he thinks the " smoothness " of the " banks 
around the water should be a leading feature." 

The collection of flower - beds was not complete in the 
early Victorian garden without a flower-basket. This fre- 
quently took the form of a series of diminishing circles of 
rustic woodwork, raised to the height of several feet, the 
lowest ring being some 12 or 15 feet in diameter, each tier being 
planted with rows of geraniums or other gaudy flowers during 
the summer. 

In a large number of gardens the old herbaceous borders 
had already been ejected when the landscape style became 
the rage, so the new system known as " bedding out " did not 
(except in a few old gardens) actually displace existing flowers. 
The old were already relegated to the background, while the 
thrilling beauty of the more tender new introductions de- 
manded recognition. Thus the obvious plan seemed to be to 
show them off for at least some part of the year. Just as the 
soft shades of the tapestry worked by Elizabethan ladies gave 
place to the crude colours of " Berlin wool," the tones in the 
garden seemed subject to the same influence, and changed 
from grave to gay. 

Where new gardens were being laid out, the Italian style 
was chosen, as being best suited to the new bedding system. 
Like all previous fashions, which had in turn been adapted 
from foreign countries, it was not slavishly copied, but the 
main ideas — the terraces, flights of steps, fountains, balus- 
trades, and regular flower-beds — were all carried out. The 
chief architects who brought this into vogue were Nesfield, 
Paxton, and Barry. 

There is a very large folio volume by A. E. Brooke in 
which are depicted what were then considered the finest 
gardens in England.^ Most of them are Italian in design, and 
the beds are filled with these gaudy but perishable flowers. 
Among the number he illustrates may be mentioned Woburn, 
^ Gardens of England. By A. E. Brooke, 1858. 



296 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Worsley, Eaton, Trentham, Castle Howard, and Teddesley, 
designed by Nesfield, all laid out between 1845 and 1858. 
The gardens of Osborne House, the favourite resort of Queen 
Victoria, were also laid out in the Italian style about this 
time. They were designed by the Prince Consort, who was 
assisted by Professor Griiner, of Dresden ; the situation of the 
ground sloping down to the Solent is particularly suited to the 
style. Sir Joseph Paxton, gardener to the Duke of Devonshire 
at Chatsworth, and well known as the editor of the Magazine 
of Botany, was the architect of the building of the Great Exhibi- 
tion, for which he was knighted ; and he afterwards laid out the 
gardens at Sydenham in an Italian style, when the structure was 
rebuilt there as the Crystal Palace. But the taste must not be 
judged from this crude example, as many charming gardens of 
a stiff Italian design were made by him. Besides those already 
quoted, Harewood is a fine example. It was planned by Lady 
Harewood, and the designs for the fountains and stone balus- 
trades were made by Sir Charles Barry. The laying out of 
Shrublands^ was begun by Sir WiUiam Middleton about 1830, 
and is therefore one of the earliest of the Italian gardens. 
There is in front of the house at Shrublands a wide terrace 
with flower-beds like that at Harewood, but without foun- 
tains ; from it long flights of steps lead to a semicircular 
terrace garden below. 

To produce vivid colouring seems to have been the chief 
aim for many years. The greater the blaze of flowers, the 
more was the garden admired. A perfection of this style was 
reached at Trentham, when the garden was described in 1859 
as a " startling mass of Geraniums and Calceolarias." In an 
Essay in 1825 Morris^ advocates the plan of " bedding out,' 
which was then quite in its infancy. " The beauty of the flower- 
garden, in the summer season," he writes, " may be heightened 
by planting in beds some of the most freely-flowering young and 
healthy green-house plants. Where there is an extent of 
green-house, a sufficient quantity of plants should be grown 
annually for this purpose, and should be sunk in the beds about 
the middle or end of May. The following are among the 

^ In Suffolk, belonging to Lord de Saumarez. 

^ Essay on Landscape Gardening. By Richard Morris, 1825. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 297 

most beautiful of this species : Anagallis grandiflora, Anagallis 
Monelli, Heliotropium grandiflorum, Fuchsia coccinea, Lobelia 
Erinus and unidentata, Hemimeris urtici folia, Alstrcemeria 
peregrina, Bouvardia triphylla, Geraniums of sorts, Lychnis 
coronaria, Linum trigynum." Before long a large number of 
plants was added to those first considered suitable for bedding 
out. A correspondent addressed a question on the subject 
to the editor of The Midland Florist in 1847. He wrote : " I 
want to mass some flowers on circular beds which are cut out 
on a grass plat. What will be best ?" In the next number 
he received the reply : " The different varieties of Verbena, 
Salvia, lobelia, Oenotheras, macrocarpa, and taraxacifolia, 
Veronica speciosa, antirrhinums, mimuluses, etc." Many- 
annuals were used for bedding, and among them Balsams and 
Cockscombs seem to have been most favoured. The periodical 
just quoted also suppHes a list of the twelve best annuals for 
summer bedding in 1847. Except one — Convolvulus tricolor, 
which was known to Parkinson — they were all of recent intro- 
duction, and the majority had come from North America. 



Phlox Drummondi (1835). 

Erysimum Perofskianum (1838). 

Gilia tricolor (1833). 

Lupinus nanus (1833). 

Cacalia coccinea (introduced about 
1799. but not generally culti- 
vated) . 



Bartonia aurea (i834).-'- 

Clarkia pulchella (1826) ; also 

C. elegans (1832). 
Clintonia pulchella (1827). 
Collinsia grandiflora (1826). 
Convolvulus tricolor. 
Nemophilia {sic) insignis (1833). 
Sphenogyne speciosa (1836).^ 

The chief Verbenas were all introduced between 1827 and 
1837, 9-^<i very soon many florists' varieties had been added 
to their ranks, and, owing to the wide choice of colour they 
presented, they were among the most popular of bedding-out 
plants. It is curious to find a rather tender perennial, Plum- 
bago LarpentcB, which will, however, flourish on herbaceous 
borders in all except the coldest counties, at one time much 
used for bedding purposes. Robert Fortune had found it 
growing on the ruined ramparts of Shanghai, but the seed he 
sent home did not germinate, and it was afterwards obtained by 

^ These figures which I have added refer to tlie date of introduction 
to England. 

^ Synonym, Ursinia speciosa. 



298 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Sir George Larpent, and exhibited in 1847. Among Geraniums, 
" Tom Thumb " had at that date already secured a foremost 
place, and was used everywhere for many years. Ageratum 
Mexicanum was much in demand " for planting in masses in 
the summer," and was considered " a capital thing for 
bouquets." Bouquets were constructed of flowers pressed 
closely together, and arranged so as to present a flat surface 
of circular shape. The Ageratum was generally accompanied 
by geraniums, calceolarias, and perhaps a rosebud or two, 
surrounded by leaves of some scented geranium, tightly bound 
together with geometric precision. It was only during the 
last quarter of the century that the fashion came in of fasten- 
ing bouquets loosely and allowing a certain amount of freedom 
to each spray, also putting only one or two kinds of flowers 
together and limiting the shades of colour. 

A change of taste began to show itself about the same time 
in " bedding out." This system still was held in great esteem, 
and even those who bewailed as a misfortune that the " garden 
was only full from Midsummer to Michaelmas," and the re- 
maining nine months of the year it " was a dreary blank," saw 
no remedy save in the further development of the same 
idea. " The bedding system," bemoans a prolific writer on 
gardening,^ is " only half developed. It is very much to be 
feared it wiU never be known as a complete system, but that 
it is doomed to remain an example of arrested development, 
so far as the mass of the people are concerned." He goes on 
to regret that " ten thousand gardens that would otherwise 
have been rich in attractions of a permanent character, and 
comparatively exhaustless in interest, have been reduced to 
the condition of manufactories, and the summer show, as a 
proof to all observers of what the factory could produce." 
In spite of misgivings and a lurking fondness for " the hardy 
herbaceous border, that is the best feature of the garden, 
though commonly regarded as the worst," he advances no 
new plan beyond a suggestion that spring as well as summer 
flowers should be placed in the beds. The expense of the 
summer show was already so enormous that few could attempt 
more, and when a new solution of the difficulty was found, 
^ The Amateur Flower-Garden, by Shirley Hibberd, 1875. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 299 

many grasped it eagerly. Mr. William Robinson was the first 
to point out the true remedy. Although he advocated a 
complete revolution in the garden, and brought in a new 
style, known as " wild gardening," and had little sympathy 
with bedding at all, he helped to make it less stiff and more 
lasting by pointing out that less tender plants might have as 
good an effect, and give a longer period of interest to the beds. 
One of the first gardens given up to formal beds he prescribed 
for was Shrublands, where at his suggestion they were filled 
with carnations, roses, and other hardy plants. Masses of 
colour and contrasts were obtained by groups of tall scarlet 
Lobelia surrounded by Centaurea ragusina, and similar com- 
binations with violas or " tufted pansies," Pentstemons, 
Snapdragons, and so on. In many gardens more permanent 
flowers were placed in beds which had for fifty years been given 
up to Geraniums. Paeonies, with daffodils between the clumps, 
so that the yellow should appear among the deep red spring 
growth, with auratum lilies to rise from out the dark green 
foliage when the blooms were over, and many such-like effects, 
gradually came to be practised. The bringing back into 
gardens the numerous hardy plants which were banished, 
and in many cases ruthlessly torn up and thrown away, when 
the rage for " bedding-out " came in, was the greatest improve- 
ment of the end of the nineteenth century. They once again 
began to hold their proper place, and with all the new species 
which every year came to swell the list of those which will 
endure our cold cUmate, more lovely effects could be pro- 
duced than were possible with the stiff bedding plants of forty 
years before. Only a few people wished to discard these half- 
hardy things altogether. Green-houses, a blaze of bright 
colours with tuberous Begonias, or some such flowers, are a 
wonderful sight, and even from a practical point of view it 
is a good plan to make room in the houses by planting out some 
of these in the summer months. Very different is this arrange- 
ment from devoting all the glass to nurture up geraniums to 
fill the whole garden. Bacon's aim was to have flowers in 
the garden during every month of the year, and in his essay 
he mentions some for each successive season. After a lapse 
of three centuries it dawned upon gardeners that it ought to 



300 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

be possible to attain that object, and to arrange that no 
month should be without its brightening flowers. 

" The daughters of the year 
One after one thro' that still garden passed ; 
Each, garlanded with her peculiar flower. 
Danced into light and died into the shade." 

Tennyson. 

Mr. William Robinson's book, The Wild Garden, was first 
published in 1881, and two years later was followed by The 
English Flower-Gar den. These books did an immense amount 
towards fostering the taste which was showing itself in favour 
of hardy flowers. This idea of naturalizing plants in shrub- 
beries, wild places, and grassy banks, and grouping them to 
produce natural picturesque effects, was just the reverse of 
" landscape gardening." Instead of bringing green undula- 
tions of park-like appearance up to the house and banishing 
the flower-garden, the art of " wild gardening " and naturalizing 
plants which are not natives, but hardy in this climate, ex- 
tends the flower-garden into the surrounding country. Mr. 
Robinson called attention to the beauties, then almost for- 
gotten, of many hardy herbaceous flowers. He suggested 
that Iris, Meadow-sweet, Monk's-hood, Trollius, or Day-lilies, 
were better suited to the margins of lakes than Dahlias or 
Geraniums. He reminded people that roses, Wistaria,^ Clematis, 
and Virginian creeper, would climb trees as easily as brick 
walls. He pointed out that shrubberies, instead of being a 
compact mass of bushes, could have glades and openings, filled 
with Trilhums, Funkias, Solomon's Seal, Lily of the Valley, 
Daffodils, Snowflakes, and Meadow saffron, or with Gentiana 
asclepiadea, Hypericums or Lilies, or other plants that, once 
established, could take care of themselves. Even walls, he 
said, could be beautified by Stonecrop, Houseleeks, Cheddar 
pinks, Corydalis lutea, and countless other things. " Mowing 
the grass once a fortnight in pleasure-grounds, as now practised, 
is a costly mistake," he wrote in 1881. Rather than this, he 
exclaimed : " Let much of the grass grow till fit to cut for 
hay, and we may enjoy in it a world of lovely flowers that will 

* Wistaria sinensis, 01 Glycine chinensis, by which name it was first 
known in this country, was only introduced in 1816. 




LILIES IN WILD GARDEN. ' 

In Miss Jekyll's garden, Miinstead, Godalmin^. 



To face page 300. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 301 

blossom and perfect their growth before hay-time." In such 
places he advocated the planting of spring-flowering bulbs, 
Poet's Narcissus, Daffodils, Anemones, Tulips (especially 
Tulifa sylvestris), Star of Bethlehem, and so forth. One 
of the first places where " wild gardening " in woods was 
carried out was Longleat, by Lord Bath's forester Berry. 
Mr. G. F. Wilson's garden at Wisley, which has since become 
the property of the Royal Horticultural Society, was one of 
the most successful on a smaller scale. -^ Very soon " wild 
gardening " became the fashion, and there seemed to be a 
general revolt against the old " bedding out." Within ten 
years of the publication of the first books on the subject the 
new style had many adherents, and although occasionally a 
want of neatness and a growth of weeds were considered the 
essential characteristic of a wild garden, as a rule the results 
achieved were very charming. 

It was about this time also that the " rock garden " was first 
developed. Among the plants which had recently been intro- 
duced was an immense number whose natural place of growth 
was on mountain slopes or between the crevices of stones. It 
seemed only reasonable to try and give these plants, as nearly 
as possible, the same conditions of life in England as on their 
native hills. The result of this desire was the formation of 
rock gardens, very different from the pile of stones which 
went by the name of a " rockery " fifty years earlier. These new 
rock gardens have been in every way successful, as rare alpines, 
which it was thought almost impossible to grow in this 
country, have been made to thrive. One of the first to be 
constructed was the well-known example at Kew. This was 
begun in 1882, the nucleus of the collection of plants, being 
some 2,600 bequeathed by George Carling Joad. Every 
season new things of interest have been added, and it is wonder- 
ful to see plants from nearly all the mountain ranges of the 
world perfectly at home within a few miles of the City of 
London. The illustration of a typical rock garden is part of 
a very large one formed a few years later by Lord Redesdale 

^ In "Some Results" at the end of The Wild Garden, Crowsley, 
Oxfordshire, Tew Park, and Mr. Hewittson's garden at Weybridge are 
mentioned as among the earliest. 



302 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

at Batsford, in Gloucestershire. This new departure soon 
became a recognized feature, and a rocky place on which 
to grow Alpines, on a more or less ambitious scale, found its 
way into every well-regulated garden. 

Another development during the last twenty-five years of 
the century was subtropical gardening. This fashion came in 
the first instance from Paris, and did something to relieve the 
formality of " bedding-out," although not nearly as important 
an improvement as the later movement towards hardy flowers. 
In England subtropical gardening was first tried in Battersea 
Park by the superintendent, John Gibson, in 1864, when the 
Park was quite in its infancy, and was administered with the 
other Royal parks. Fine results were obtained from planting 
out the hardier kinds of tree ferns and palms during the summer 
months, but it was soon found that the best kind of sub- 
tropical garden was the permanent one. Even in the coldest 
districts of England numerous plants will grow which give a 
tropical appearance. -"^ It was found that various bamboos 
would flourish even in Norfolk and Suffolk, where the late 
frosts are most trying to gardeners. Bambusa Metake, Simonii, 
viridiglaucescens, and aurea are perfectly hardy, and besides 
these, such things as Berberis, Aralias, Gunnera scabra, Aristo- 
lochias, giant Heracleums, Arundo Donax, several species of 
Rhus and Spirse, Polygonum cuspidatum, Tamarix, Yuccas, 
Polygonatum multiflorum, Solomon's seal, Bocconia co^data, and 
several sorts of Acanthus, besides taller trees, such as the 
Ailanthus glandulosa, and Japanese maples, were grouped on 
grass with smaller ferns and grasses to produce a tropical effect. 
Green gardens composed of such things, forming a pleasant 
variation from the brighter flowering plants, were planted in 
some of the colder counties,^ but chiefly in the warmer districts 
of England, where satisfactory results could be more easily 

^ The Subtropical Garden. By W. Robinson. Second edition, 1879. 
The Bamboo Garden. By Bertram Freeman Mitford (afterwards Lord 
Redesdale), 1896. 

^ The very fine bamboo-garden at Batsford, Gloucestershire, the ones 
at Kew and at Shrublands, Suffolk, were among the earliest, and a 
" green garden," chiefly bamboo, was planted at Didlington, Norfolk, 
before 1890 ; but for the most part bamboos were only grown in 
Cornwall and Devonshire. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 303 

accomplished. It was discovered that some of the hardier 
pahns would do well and appear almost at home among the 
familiar English trees. 

Parts of Cornwall are so mild that many plants wiU thrive 
there which are considered as green-house nurslings in other 
parts of England. That county was the pioneer in sub- 
tropical gardening, and some gardens that would astonish 
gardeners from less-favoured districts were established before 
such things were thought of elsewhere. It was perhaps the 
sight of one of these early attempts to acclimatize a palm that 
inspired Mrs. Hemans to write the following lines : ^ 

" But fair the exiled palm-tree grew 
Midst foliage of no kindred hue ; 
Through the laburnum's dropping gold 
Rose the light shaft of Orient mould. 
And Europe's violets faintly sweet 
Purpled the moss-beds at its feet. 

" Strange looked it there ! the willow streamed 
Where silvery waters near it gleamed ; 
The lime-bough lured the honey-bee 
To murmur by the desert tree. 
And showers of snowy roses made 
A lustre in its fan-like shade." 

Mrs. Hemans. 

Pengerrick, Menabilly, Heligan, Tregothnan, Carclew, and 
Bosahan are among the finest of these Cornish gardens. At the 
latter place the planting of tree-ferns was only begun about 
1884, but their size and luxuriance is surprising. Camellias grow 
into trees,^ and Sikkim Rhododendrons flower in the open air, 
while Lapagerias will grow like ivy on sheltered walls. In these 
gardens, Rhododendrons, Thomsoni, Hodgsoni, campylocarpum, 
argenteum, Aucklandii, and other tender species and varieties, 
are covered with bloom every spring. And besides these, many 
interesting plants thrive well there which are usually kept in 
green-houses in England, Choisya ternata, Emhothriumcoccineum, 

^ These lines were probably inspired by a subtropical garden in South- 
West Ireland, but the poem goes on to describe the feelings of an Indian 
on seeing the palm, which recalls a similar incident in I'Abbe Delille's 
poem, Les Jar dines. 

^ Also in Hampshire, Dorset (especially at Abbotsbury), and some 
other Southern and Western Counties. 



304 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Phyllocladus rhomhoidalis, Azara microphylla, among the num- 
ber. At Carclew, Benthamias, the seeds of which were first 
sent home to England from Ceylon by Sir Anthony BuUer, 
flourish ; some of the original ones still grow in the garden at 
Heligan, where they were first planted. Still more favourable 
is the climate of the Scilly Isles, and lately this has been taken 
advantage of for growing narcissi. Mr. Dorrien Smith started 
the culture, and during the last ten years of the century this 
commerce steadily increased, and thousands of cut flowers 
were sent to the London markets.^ In the islands in February 
there are acres of narcissi in bloom, which are picked and sent 
off to London. Fields of many acres of Poet's Narcissus were 
planted, and quantities of the polyanthus varieties are also 
grown. The daffodil was then coming prominently into 
notice, and each type was being enormously developed.^ 

In carrying out the idea of the wild garden, the spring 
garden was completely transformed. Instead of consisting 
only of a few tulips and hyacinths bedded out, it became a 
fairyland, with thousands of narcissi and many other bulbs, 
such as Scilla sihirica, Chionodoxa Lucilice, or Tulipa silvestris, 
naturalized and planted in masses on grass, in glades, or on 
the edges of lawns. These gave a brilliant effect before the 
summer flowers made their appearance. There is also another 
kind of spring garden which came into fashion about the same 
time, and was first most successfully carried out at Belvoir. 
Not only were the beds filled with " Forget-me-nots," Iris 
reticulata and Iris sihirica, Silenes, Violas, Wall-flowers, or 
Heuchera sanguinea, Aubretias, Cerastium tomentosum, and 
such-like, but many Primulas, Anemones, Gentians, Cyclamens, 
and various alpines were naturalized on a vast rock garden. 

No sooner had wild gardening, with all the possibilities it 
opened up for the increased cultivation of hardy plants, drawn 
a host of gardeners beneath its standard than a rival campaign 
was embarked on.^ The bringing back of forsaken hardy 

^ "Thirty-and-a-half tons of flowers, principally narcissi, or 3,258,000 
blooms in 4,849 boxes, reached Penzance from the Scilly Isles yester- 
day." — Daily Telegraph, February 26, 1896. 

^ Ye Narcissus, a Daffodil Flower. By Barr, 1884. 

^ The Formal Garden (Bloomfield and Thomas, 1892), Garden Craft, 
Old and New (John Sedding, 189-). 




TREE-FERNS ("DICKSONIA ANTARCTICA") AT BOSAHAN, I( 




Photo. Gibson, Penzance. 



NARCISSUS IN THE SCILLY ISLES. 



To face page 304. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 305 

plants to a foremost place led people to read what old writers 
had to say of them, and the study of forgotten books probably 
hastened the movement in favour of the formal garden. 
From time to time the old-fashioned formal method had had 
its adherents, even when the rage for Italian gardens was at 
its height. Some beautiful specimens of the EngHsh styles 
in vogue prior to the " landscape " craze were made between 
1840 and i860. Penshurst in Kent, Arley^ in Cheshire, 
Blickling in Norfolk, and Montacute in Somerset, are all weU- 
knowTi examples. A representative type of the later revival 
in favour of the " formal," which was started in opposition 
to the " wild garden," can be seen at Ascott.^ Here there is a 
remarkable collection of quaint cut yew and box trees, some of 
which were transplanted from neighbouring cottage gardens ; 
but many were brought home from Holland, and arranged as 
if they were growing in a seventeenth-century garden. 

The advocates of these opposite schools waged a fierce war 
in print, and the nineteenth century closed when the con- 
troversy was at its height. The truce arrived at was a com- 
promise, and a fusion of the best of both contending parties, 
and a new phase of gardening was entered upon, which wiU be 
dealt with shortly in the following chapter. 

^ Belonging to P. Egerton Warburton, Esq. See illustration. 
^ Near Leighton Buzzard, belonging to Leopold Rothschild, Esq. 



20 



CHAPTER XIV 

MODERN GARDENING 

" There is a garden, and a wilderness, 
And both are fair. 
Yet touch not nature's own true loveliness. 
With useless care. 

" But in your garden, work till stars appear. 
With toil and skill, 
Through dawning life, until the fading year, 
When all is still. 

" Nature is mystic, like a hidden soul. 
Complete, sublime. 
Changing, returning, yet a perfect whole. 
For endless time. 

" But conquer from the wild each flower that grows. 
In case some day, 
The Maker passing, stoops to pluck a rose 
Upon His way." 

Sybil Amherst. 

FEW periods have witnessed a greater advance in gardening 
than the first decade of the twentieth century. Ten 
years before the close of the nineteenth gardening was still 
the passion of the few ; now it is the craze of the many. For 
every book on the subject that came out in 1895, a dozen 
appeared in 1905; for each person who then knew to what order 
a daisy belonged, perhaps twenty could now be found, able to 
quote with ease five-syllabled Latin names. This enthusiasm 
seems to be more than a passing fashion, and has penetrated 
various ranks of society, and the impress it has already made 
upon gardens is sufficiently marked to be lasting. Perhaps 
no better indication of the increase of those who appreciate 
beautiful gardens could be found than a comparison of the 
numbers of visitors to Kew. For some time after they were 

306 



MODERN GARDENING 307 

first opened to the public in 1841 the numbers could be reckoned 
in tens of thousands. They increased on such occasions as 
the inauguration of the palm-house, or in the year of the Great 
Exhibition of 1851, when there were as many as 327,900. By 
the eighties the yearly visitors amounted to 1,000,000, and in 
1900 there were 1,111,024. In 1907 no less than 2,962,714, 
and in 1908 2,710,220 individuals went to see the gardens. 
This immense rise during the last few years cannot be solely 
accounted for by the improved facilities for reaching Kew ; 
some proportion must be due to the deepening appreciation of 
horticulture. 

Another gauge of the advance of gardening in popularity is 
the growth of the number of Fellows belonging to the Royal 
Horticultural Society. For many years they had been c the 
upward grade, but within the last decade they have goi i up 
by leaps and bounds. In 1900 there were 4,750, but the end 
of 1908 saw 10,507 Fellows enrolled. The increase is partly due 
to the wider sphere of work which was opened to the Society by 
the munificent gift of the garden which had belonged to Mr. 
G. F. Wilson at Wisley, in Surrey, by the late Sir Thomas Han- 
bury. He will always be remembered as one of the most 
generous and enthusiastic of gardeners by his numerous friends 
in this country, as well as by those who were acquainted with 
his garden at La Mortola. At Wisley a valuable School of 
Horticulture is being carried on, as well as a delightful and in- 
structive garden. Some Fellows have no doubt joined the 
Society merely because their friends have done so, and the 
shows afford a pleasant meeting-place ; but an immense majo- 
rity are possessed of no mean knowledge, and the standard of 
attainment they must be judged by is higher than that of fifty 
years ago. Apart from a small proportion who have acquired 
merely the phraseology of gardening, the very large number 
of men and women who have a real insight of the subject would 
astonish the gardening experts of a former generation. 

The recently stimulated desire to " garden finely " has pro- 
duced a distinct style, which differs in many ways from any of 
the former fashions which have had their day. Although the 
main ideas of a " wild garden " have not been abandoned, there 
has been a certain return to formality. Dipped trees and 

20 — 2 



3o8 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

straight beds are often the keynote of the arrangement, but the 
prevailing wish is usually to produce colour effects. To mass 
plants of one kind or one colour, whether in beds or borders, 
in woods or glades, or by lakes and streams, to form some 
pleasing or striking picture, is the usual aim. Vivid contrasts 
or gorgeous tones melting from one to another, whole gardens 
devoted to one colour in all its varying shades, or rainbow gra- 
dations of tints, such are some of the effects which the modern 
gardener thinks out. The old " mixed border " is generally 
felt to be unsatisfying, and a succession of carefully planned 
groups, to produce a harmonious whole, has taken its place. 

The length of time the garden is beautiful has been prolonged 
by countless artifices, and a garden chiefly composed of brown 
earth for some months of the year is now an uncommon sight. 
The perpetual blooming roses, the improved hardy chrysanthe- 
mums, together with some of the Japanese maples and lilies, 
bring a brightness of summer into the purple and gold autumnal , 
season. The early spring is ushered in by giant snowdrops and^ 
dainty iris, soon to be followed by glowing effects with Japanese 
cherries, peaches, and crab-apples. To fill turf with spring' 
flowering bulbs is now the rule, and not the exception, just as 
rock gardens within the last few years have become general 
instead of unusual. 

Another feature now common to most gardens is the pergola. 
This did not come into fashion with the Italian gardens of the 
middle of last century, as might have been expected, and the 
pergola of English gardens to-day seems to have more in 
common with the shade alleys of Elizabethan times than 
with the vine-clad pergolas of Italy. The improvement of 
the rambler roses is perhaps chiefly responsible for the adoption 
of the pergola. 

AU through the long years that horticulture has been 
practised in England the current history of each period has left 
its mark on the gardens, and the twentieth century promises 
to be no exception. Since the alliance between Great Britain 
and Japan, it has become the fashion to plant so-called 
" Japanese gardens " in this country. This has been rendered 
more easy by the increased intercourse between the two 
countries, and particularly since the Japanese have imbibed 



MODERN GARDENING 309 

European ideas, and have taken to the European classification 
and nomenclature of plants. Already a new genus, named 
Kirengeshoma, has been founded by a Japanese botanist. 
Plants are sent from Japan in large quantities, and the cata- 
logues of these " Far Eastern " nurserymen, attractively illus- 
trated, now reach the keen amateur along with the list of bulbs 
from Holland and roses from France. The English Japanese 
garden is very unlike its prototype in Japan, where every stone 
has a meaning, and each plant a significance, and all is done to 
accord exactly with the rules which govern Horticultural art 
in that country ; but it is also quite unlike any other type of 
English garden, and altogether a new departure, and has 
nothing in common with the " Chinese " gardening of the old 
landscape school. 

Undoubtedly China has furnished the largest number of new 
plants for the garden during recent years. The opening of 
new treaty ports made an " open door," not only to trade and 
enterprise, but to the botanist also. Since the days of Robert 
Fortune a number of enthusiasts have dipped into the treasure 
hordes of that vast empire, but immense fields were left un- 
touched. The quantity of plants dried by Dr. Augustine 
Henry^ is almost incredible. He went to China as medical 
officer in the service of the Chinese Maritime Customs in 188 1, 
and his first batch of specimens reached Kew in 1886. So 
astonishing was it that he was urged to continue, and he did 
so for nearly twenty years. His different appointments took 
him to various localities, some with tropical climates, others 
at an altitude where frost and snow were frequent. Ichang, 
1,000 miles up the Yangtze, yet only 70 feet above the sea- 
level, was where the collection was begun, and it was carried on 
in the Province of Szechuen, in the islands of Hainan and 
Fonnosa, near Mengtze- Yunnan and Sczemao. The number 
of dried specimens sent to Kew amounted to something like 
158,000. Of these, there were some 5,000 distinct species, of 
which at least 500 were new, and, what is most astonishing, 
they included thirty new genera. Among those famihar were 
new kinds of Clematis, Rhododendrons, Lonicera, Primula, Gen- 
tiana, Lysimachia, Pedicularis, Rubus, Rosa, Vitis, and so on. 

* Now reader in Forestry in the University of Cambridge. 



310 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

Dr. W. Botting Hemsley, who has worked at the classification 
of this vast collection, writing in 1901, stated that many of the 
new varieties and species were finer than any already in cultiva- 
tion, and the new genera include many of great worth. 

When the twentieth century dawned, hardly any of these 
had, as a sixteenth-century writer would have said, " become 
denizens of our English gardens." No wonder that nursery- 
men thirsted for a share of the spoils. The intrepid spirit of 
former adventurers has not ceased to stir British gardeners to 
make strenuous efforts in the cause of science, and collectors in 
many climes still have difficulties to encounter, in spite of the 
comforts of civilization, which rapid communication has 
brought to the utmost parts of the earth. No sooner had 
Messrs. Veitch decided to send a collector to obtain a supply 
of the best of the plants newly discovered in China, especially 
of Davidia involucrata and Meconopsis integrifolia, than Mr. 
E. H. Wilson, who was well suited to the purpose, was found 
ready to undertake the commission. He arrived in Hong Kong 
in June, 1899, and during his first trip to consult with Dr. 
Henry, then in Sczemao, in Yunnan, he found the new Jasmi- 
num primulinum, and started on a longer journey in February, 
1900, making Ichang, on the Yangtze, his headquarters. Un- 
dismayed by the Boxer riots, he remained at his post, and found 
numberless new plants, such as Astilbe Davidii and Clematis 
montana rubens, in the neighbouring mountain ranges. Again 
he returned to China, and in January, 1903, started once more 
up the Yangtze, and penetrated to the snowy peaks of Tibet. 
The account of the journey is full of interest from a botanical 
point of view, and is as replete with hardships as the most 
adventurous could desire.-"- First, the rapids of the Yangtze, 
a series of dangerous obstacles, where wrecks are frequent and 
many lives are lost, had to be passed. Beyond Kiatung the 
journey to Tatien-lu and on into the mountain fastnesses was 
made on foot, and it was at 11,000 feet above the sea that Mr. 
Wilson first sighted the flower he was in search of. From 
1,000 feet higher up to an altitude of 14,500 feet, miles and miles 
of Alpine meadows were covered with the exquisite yellow 

^ The Gardener's Chronicle, June, 1905, and continued in some thirty 
numbers. 



MODERN GARDENING 31T 

poppy {Meconopsis integri folia) . Numberless beautiful plants 
were seen in the same district — a perfect paradise of flowers. 
New species of Spiraea, Anemone, Buddleia, Abelia, Pedicularis, 
Senecio, Anemone, Primula, Polygala, etc., abounded. Another 
yet more arduous journey was made to Sungpan by Mr. E. H. 
Wilson a few months later, and again the finding of new species 
rewarded this intrepid and highly successful collector. The 
home of the Meconopsis integrifolia was reached in June, 1903. 
The next spring visitors to the " Temple Show "^ were thrilled 
by the sight of this beauteous flower, and the seeds were dis- 
tributed in September, 1904, so rapidly can the treasures of an 
almost unexplored country be brought nowadays to an English 
garden. 

From Africa also new flowers are still constantly arriving. 
The West Coast, Nigeria, and Liberia have furnished their 
share, and the brilliant Kalankoe from Somaliland repre- 
sents the drier East. The scarlet Gerbera Jamesoni^ now 
known as the " Transvaal Daisy," was not grown in this 
country before the late war. Only dwellers in South Africa 
were familiar with the " Barberton Daisy," as it was called, 
from the place in which it was first discovered.^ Now not only 
the pure flame-coloured Daisy, but numerous garden hybrids, 
are commonly met with in England. Notwithstanding the 
increased knowledge of African plants, only about ten per cent, 
have been introduced, although a large number are well worth 
cultivation.^ 

1 The exhibition of the Royal Horticultural Society, held in the 
Temple Gardens. 

2 Called after R. Jameson, a Natal botanist. 

3 It is interesting to know that the wife of Mr. Barber, the founder 
01 the town [nJe Bowker), was a naturalist and collector, and she 
found the lovely Cyrtanihus sangtiinea on the site of Barberton, when 
she first camped there with her husband. 

* When travelhng with my husband in South Africa just before the 
war, and until January, 1900, we collected in Rhodesia for Kew, and 
were successful in finding no less than forty new species, some of which 
would be well suited for culture in England, but very few have as yet 
been grown here. I have now been able to hand over to Messrs. Sander 
a pretty Gloriosa lutea, and Hcsmanthus Cecil cb has flowered in this 
country, but many, such as Kampferia CecilcB, Pavetta Cecilice, or 
Abutilon Cecili, have not yet been imported at all. 



312 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

The knowledge that every new plant is eagerly sought after, 
and that, although gardens have an almost unlimited choice, 
they are ever ready to welcome novelties, has kept alive the 
enthusiasm of plant collectors as well as stimulated the energies 
of florists. Botanists are continually endeavouring to improve 
the knowledge of the flora of every country, and British 
workers have not been behind the rest of the world. Thus, 
in spite of the enterprise of centuries, the world still holds 
hidden treasures for the garden, which it may be the good for- 
tune of twentieth-century travellers to disclose. 

The good quahties and the requirements of any new plant 
are quickly made known to the public through the medium 
of a host of gardening newspapers, as well as by the more 
scientific reports of societies or the Kew Bulletins. Garden 
literature is at the present time unprecedented in quantity ; 
of its quality it is best to leave future generations to be the 
judges. The cheapness with which pictures in monochrome 
or colour can be reproduced to form attractive volumes is 
apt to prove a snare, unless the writer has some particular 
information to impart, or is greatly gifted with novel ideas 
or poetical sentiments, and has a facility of clothing them in 
appropriate language. 

There have been considerable developments in the fruit- 
market since the year 1900, not so much from any improve- 
ment at home, but from the opening up of trade with British 
Colonies. Exhibitions of colonial fruit have been held in 
London to familiarize the public with the products of the 
Empire. Apples from Tasmania or British Columbia and other 
distant places are so cheap that it hardly pays the home 
producer to keep the late ripening fruit to sell at a more profit- 
able season. Custard apples are commonly to be seen in 
fruiterers' shops, and even the Mango can be conveyed in a 
fresh state to a London purveyor, so rapid has the transport 
become, and so complete are the arrangements on board the 
ships for preserving fruit in cooled chambers. The Plums 
and r, Peaches . | of South Africa have already established 
a place in British markets. The most striking change within 
the last few years has been the cheapening of Bananas. The 



MODERN GARDENING 313 

already familiar sight of barrows of fruit being sold at less 
than one penny a piece was unknown in the nineteenth cen- 
tury.'^ Besides this welcome fruit from the Colonies which 
cannot be grown here, an immense amount is imported from 
abroad which, with a little more enterprise, could be raised in 
the country. Early vegetables are also imported from abroad 
in great quantities, and it is no doubt a meritorious desire to 
supply these at home that has led to the sudden craze to 
embark on the French methods of market gardening. This 
consists chiefly in growing early crops under bell-glasses on 
highly manured ground. The soil round Paris where this 
system pays best is exceptionally rich, but undoubtedly it is 
a profitable business elsewhere when thoroughly understood. 
There is no reason why it should not succeed in England when 
entrusted to experienced hands, which does not always appear 
to be thought necessary. It requires a large outlay per acre, 
and extremely hard work of a technical nature. A similar 
system was in vogue near London a hundred and fifty years 
ago.2 

One characteristic of present-day gardening is the share 
that women take in it. Thomas Tusser and all the old writers 
frequently pointed out that the care of the garden was within 
the department of a good housewife, but the " lady gardener " 
is the product of the last few years. It was only in 1891 that 
the Horticultural College at Swanley admitted for the first 
time a lady student, but by 1896 there were thirty-nine, in 
spite of a strong prejudice against women taking up the work 
seriously. In 1903 the college was turned into one entirely 
for women, and sixty-three students entered. Since then 
the number of students has fluctuated between sixty and 

^ The Daily Graphic, October 4, 1905, has a headline, " A Procession 
of Bananas — Half a Mile of Vans." The paragraph gives an account of 
a special train which took 14,000 bunches of bananas from the cargo of 
a ship from Jamaica just arrived at Avonmouth. Three hundred men 
quickly loaded up 100 vans, which started from Paddington to dis- 
tribute the fruit throughout London and the suburbs. This was in 
the early stages of the banana trade, which now is established, and 
creates no excitement in newspaper columns. 

* See p. 240. 



314 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

seventy. Of those who complete their training, about eighty 
per cent, keep up their gardening, and of these about forty 
become private or jobbing gardeners, about ten take to 
market-gardening, about ten become teachers or lecturers, 
and about twenty garden in their own homes, or otherwise 
lead open-air lives. ^ Other teaching centres have since been 
opened, and the number of women who take up gardening as 
a profession is on the increase. The movement is not confined 
to this country, but there are women's horticultural colleges 
both in Europe and America.^ The very idea of a lady being 
employed as a head-gardener, with men and boys working under 
her, was so astonishing that the suggestion naturally met 
with much opposition, but the able way in which ladies have 
discharged the multitudinous duties of such a position is 
already disarming criticism. 

Another new departure has been the introduction of " Nature 
Study " into the school curriculum. Children of the poor and 
rich alike are taught to understand some of the elementary 
facts connected with plant life, and not unfrequently to the 
theoretical is added a practical lesson in a garden attached to 
the school. The movement began with the idea that if a more 
intelligent appreciation of Nature was impressed on country 
children, they might be less reluctant to quit the rural districts 
and crowd into the towns. It is now being worked inversely 
also. Town children are taught about the country, and even 
in such populous districts as' Stepney or Ratcliffe Highway 
small children dig their plots of ground and plant and water 
and weed under the auspices of the Borough Council. All this 
tends to diffuse the love of flowers and gardening. The interest 
that has been awakened through the beauty of the parks is also , 
far-reaching. Shows of chrysanthemums, a smoke-resisting | 
flower, aiid widely cultivated in the poorer districts of towns, 
are arranged in many of the London parks, Victoria, Finsbury, 

^ In 1908, 10 Swanley students obtained posts as teachers or lecturers 
or were put in charge of school gardens ; 12 became head-gardeners ; 
10 singlehanded or under-gardeners ; 3 market-gardeners ; 7 companion- 
gardeners or for temporary or jobbing work ; 2 were working in 
their own gardens. 

' See the book on the subject by the Hon. Frances^Wolseley, 1908. 



MODERN GARDENING 315 

Battersea, and others, and are largely attended. On a Sunday 
morning during November crowds of men may be seen waiting 
their turn to walk through the green-house where the display is 
on view. Nor are societies wanting to assist individual effort in 
the distribution of seeds, and encouragement by rewards for 
window-boxes. The appreciation of such efforts was shown 
when a " Country in Town " exhibition was held in White- 
chapel in 1906 and the two following years, as over 50,000 
people visited it during the fortnight it was open. 

The changes that have come over the style of gardening 
are nowhere more apparent than in town parks. There is 
still a great deal of " bedding out," which is indispensable owing 
to the drawback of smoke ; but the arrangement of flowers is 
no longer stiff nor the colours crude. Three times a year, in 
spring, summer, and autumn, in many of the large parks, the 
plants are changed, each time producing some new combination 
of colour. The herbaceous borders have also been largely in- 
creased, and the margins of artificial lakes have been fringed 
with aquatic plants. The most conspicuous change of all has 
been the planting of thousands of bulbs in the grass, which 
produce charming effects in the spring. Not only have existing 
parks been beautified, but great efforts have been made to lay 
out new open spaces in all populous centres. Few of these 
consist merely of grass and trees, but as a rule a regular garden 
is kept up as well. 

A further development is the creation of " Garden Suburbs " 
or even " Garden Cities." The very fact that such a combina- 
tion of words, which hitherto merely expressed a contradiction 
in terms, should have come into everyday use, shows perhaps, 
more than anything else, what a necessity of life a garden is 
now considered by a large section of the community. 

All that is being done to stimulate a taste for the beautiful 
in Nature and to foster an appreciation of flowers cannot fail 
to have an effect on the gardens of the twentieth century. 
No one can safely prophesy, but there seems every indication 
that the marked revival of horticulture in all its branches with 
which the century opened is likely to be a lasting one. With 
all the improved methods of scientific gardening, and all the 



3i6 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

assistance that painting, literature, botany, and chemistry 
are giving to the art, there should be a briUiant future for the 
English garden. What results further developments may 
lead to it would be vain to try and foretell, but it is certain that 
if the modern gardener makes a full use of opportunities, and 
the advantages afforded by art and science, the gardens of the 
twentieth century may far outshine anything that has yet been 
seen in England. 



APPENDIX 

PARLIAMENTARY SURVEYS 

SURREY, No. 72. 

SURVEY OF WIMBLEDON.i 

A Survey of the Manor of Wymbledon, alias Wimbleton, with 
the Rights, Members, and Appurtenances thereof, lying and being 
in the county of Surrey, late parcel of the possessions of Henrietta 
Maria, the relict and late Queen of Charles Stuart, late King of 
England, made and taken by us whose names are hereunto 
subscribed in the month of November, 1649 ; by virtue of a com- 
mission grounded upon an Act of the Commons assembled in 
Parliament for sale of the Honors, Manors, and Lands heretofore 
belonging to the late King, Queen, or Prince, under the hands 
and seals of five or more of the Trustees in the said Act named 
and appointed. 

[The Hall, the rooms, the stone gallery, the grotto, the marble 
parlour, the organs, the Chapel, the King's chamber, the 
West stairs, the East stairs, a room called the Den of Lions, 
the great gallery, the Queen's chamber, the second, third, 
and fourth floors, the Clock stairs, the Wardrobe stairs, 
the back stairs, the leads, &c., cire described.] 

And also consisting of one garden called the Oringe garden, 
adjoining to the East end of the said Manor or Mansion House, 
severed from the Pheasant Garden with a high brick wall upon 
the East and North sides thereof, and from the upper or greater 
garden with an open pale on the South side thereof, containing 
upon admeasurement one rood and twenty perches of ground, 
worth per annum £1. 

Memorandum, that in the said Oringe Garden there are 
four knotts, fitted for the giowth of choice flowers, bordered with 

* Transcribed from the original MS. in the Record Office. It has been 
printed before with the complete Survey in vol. x, of the Archaologia, 1792. 

317 



3i8 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Marble 
Fountain. 



The 

Oringe 
Garden. 



Oringe 
trees. 



Lemon 
tree. 



Pome- 
citron 
tree. 

Pome- 
granet 
tree(s). 



box in the points, angles, squares, and roundlets, and handsomely 
turfed in the intervals or little walks thereof ; which knotts, and 
the flower roots therein growing, we estimate to be worth £2^. los. 

In the middle part of which four knotts is one large round, 
paved with small pebble stones ; in the middle whereof stands 
one handsome Fountain of white marble, which, with the pipes 
of lead and cocks thereunto belonging, we value to be worth £20. 

Unto which Fountain one pavement of Flanders brick, six 
foot broad, extends itself from the East of the said Manor or 
Mansion House, up the middle of the said Oringe Garden, which 
we value to be worth . 

The other three alleys or little walks betwixt the said four 
knotts are paved with pebble stone, worth in both £2. 

The middle of which said three allies leadeth from the said 
Fountain unto a garden or Shadow house, paved with Flanders 
brick, and handsomely benched, standing in the middle of the 
East wall of the said Oringe Garden ; the materials of which 
house are worth £5. ids. 

There are four large and handsome gravelled walks inclosing 
the said four knotts ; the value whereof we include in the foresaid 
yearly value of the said Oringe garden. 

In the side of which said Oringe Garden there stands one 
large Garden House ; the out walls of brick ; fitted for the keeping 
of Oringe trees ; neatly covered with blue slate, and ridged and 
guttered with lead ; the materials of which house, with the great 
doors and the iron thereof, with a certain stone pavement lying 
before those doors, in nature of a little walk 4 foot broad and 
seventy-nine foot long, we value to be worth £66. 13s. 4d. 

In which said Garden House there are now standing in square 
boxes, fitted for that purpose, forty-two Oringe trees bearing fair 
and large oringes ; which trees, with the boxes and the earth and 
materials therein feeding the same, we value at ten pounds a tree, 
one tree with another, in to to amounting unto £420. 

In the said Garden House there now also is one Lemon tree 
bearing great and very large lemons, which, together with the 
box that it grows in, and the earth and materials therein feeding 
the same, we value at £20. 

In the said Garden House there now also is one Pomecitron 
tree, which, together with the box that it grows in, and the earth 
and materials feeding the same, we value at £10. 

There are also belonging to the said Oringe Garden 6 Pome- 
granet trees, bearing fair and large fruits, which, together with 
the square boxes they grow in, and the earth and materials 
therein feeding the same, we value at three pounds a tree, one 
with another, in toto £18. 



PARLIAMENTARY SURVEY OF WIMBLEDON 319 

There are also belonging to the said Oringe Garden 18 Oringe The 
trees, that have not yet borne fruit, which, with their boxes, Oringe 
earth, and materials therein feeding the same, we value at five ^^.rden. 
pounds a tree, one with another, in toto amounting unto the 
sum of {()0. 

Memorandum, that the foresaid six Pomegranet trees and the 
said eighteen Oringe trees now stand and are placed with their 
boxes in one little room of the said Mansion House called 
the lower Spanish Room, and opening to the said Oringe 
Garden. 

In the head of every of the said four knotts there is one Cypress 
tree growing, which 4 together we value at -£1. 

There are two Apricot trees growing to the wall on the 
North Side of the said Oringe Garden, worth £1. 

There are also 14 Laurel trees planted in several places of the 
said Oringe Garden, which we value in the gi-oss at £l. 8s. 

In the South East corner of the said Oringe Garden, there is 
one fair Bay tree, which we value at £1. 

Memorandum, that the said Oringe Garden extends no farther 
in breadth than the East end of the said Manor or Mansion 
House doth extend itself ; but is exceedingly graced with the said 
two long galleries or walks adjoining to the East end of the said 
Manor or Mansion House ; the one leaded, standing four yards 
above the said Garden, and the other floored with free stones, 
lying level with the said Oringe Garden, and extending to the 
whole breadth thereof ; the value of the materials of which said 
galleries are contamed in the valuation of the said Manor or 
Mansion House, as in the particulars thereof may appear. 

And also of one other garden called the Upper or Great Garden, The 
adjoining to the South side of the said Manor or Mansion House ; Upper or 
severed from the said Oringe Garden with the said raised pale ^^^} 
on the South side of the said Oringe Garden, and lying between 
the said Manor or Mansion House and the Vineyard Garden, 
from which it is severed with a long brick wall ten foot high 
on the South side thereof ; and from Wymbledon Park with 
a brick wall of ten foot high on the East side thereof ; and from 
the Churchyard with another brick wall of ten foot high on the 
West side thereof ; and from the Wood yard with a brick wall of 
ten foot high on the South side thereof ; containing upon ad- 
measurement 6 acres and 26 perches of land, worth per 
annum ;^I2. 

Memorandum, that the said Upper or Great Garden is divided 
into two several levels or parts by an ascent of ten steps ; the 
lower level or part whereof adjoins to the South side of the 
said Manor or Mansion House, and lies level with the floor of 



320 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

the Hall of that Mansion House, containing in itself 4 several 
squares, having one fair and spacious gravelled walk, neatly 
ordered, running from East to West all along the said South side 
of the said Manor or Mansion House, being twenty-five foot 
broad and one hundred three score and ten yards long ; at 
either end of which Lower Level is one other gravelled walk 
running up in a regular form to the Upper or Higher Level. 
These three walks include within them the whole extent of the 
said lower level, and are comprised in the yearly value of the 
whole Garden. 
The The said Lower Level is divided and cut out into 4 great squares. 

Lower the two middlemost whereof contain within them eight several 
^^^ ■ squares, and well ordered knotts, stored with the roots of very 
many and choice flowers ; bordered with box, well planted and 
ordered, in the points, angles, squares, and roundlets ; the four 
innermost quarters thereof being paved with Flanders bricks 
in the intervals, spaces, or little walks thereof ; which knotts, 
borders, and roots of flowers, and the said Flanders bricks, we 
estimate to be worth £60. 

Up the middle of which eight knotts, runs one walk or alley 
of paved stone from the hall door of the said Manor or Mansion 
House to the foot of the ascent of the said Higher or Upper 
Level ; containing in breadth 16 foot and in length 127 foot ; the 
stones whereof we value to be worth £20. 

The said eight knotts are compassed about on three sides 
thereof with very handsome rails, piked with spired posts in every 
corner and angle, all of wood, varnished with white, [which] 
very much adorns and sets forth the Garden ; all along the insides 
of which rails grow divers Cypress trees in a very decent order, 
having the outsides bordered with choice and pleasant flowers ; 
in the two angles of which rails inwards stand two stone statues 
of good ornament ; which rails, spired posts, and statues we 
estimate to be worth £29. 8s. 
Diana In the middle of the 4 of the foresaid eight knotts which lie 

Fountain, q^ ^j^g West side of the said pavement, there stands one Fountain 
of white marble, having a statue of Diana upon it, and a fair 
lead cistern belonging to it, from whence runs a channelled 
pavement of stone into the Birdcage, being shadowed round with 
twelve Cherry trees, which stand in the points and angles of 
those four knotts ; which fountain, statue, cistern, and channelled 
pavement we estimate to be worth £y. 
Mermaid In the middle of the 4 knotts which lie on the East side of 
Fountain, ^j^g sa^i(j pavement, there is one other Fountain of white marble, 
having a statue of a mermaid upon it, and a cistern of lead, 
being also shadowed round with twelve Cherry trees, which stand 



PARLIAMENTARY SURVEY OF WIMBLEDON 321 

in the points and angles of those 4 knotts ; which Fountain, 
statue, and cistern we value to be worth ^fio. 

The other two great squares of the said Lower Level, each of The 
them contains within its own square four square grass plots, with ^^"^^-^ 
one handsome round grass plot in the middle thereof, and lie at 
the East and West ends of the said eight knotts ; in the middle 
of each of which four grass plots stands one fair Cypress tree. 
The four grass plots are bordered on all sides and angles with 
neat and well ordered thorn hedges, and well planted with many 
Cherry trees ; but the value of the said two squares is not other- 
wise valuable than as comprised within the yearly estimate of 
the whole Garden. 

At the west end of the gravelled alley which adjoins to the Garden 
South side of the said Manor House, there stands one Garden ^°^^^- 
House, part of boards, part of rails, covered with blue slate, and 
ridged and guttered with lead, paved with square stone, having 
one door going into the said gravelled alley, one other door going 
into the end alley leading to the said Upper Level, and one other 
door opening into the Hartichoke Garden ; the materials of which 
house we value to be worth £g. 

In the middle of the East wall of the said Lower Level there Shadow 
stands one garden, summer, or shadow house, covered wth blue ^°"s^- 
slate, handsomely benched and wainscotted in part, and paved 
with bricks, the materials whereof we value to be worth £5. 

In the North side of the said alley, next adjoining to the Banquet- 
said Manor House, and in the very end of the pale which divides ^ouse 
the said Lower Level from the Oringe Garden, there stands one 
Banqueting House, covered with blue slate, ridged and guttered 
with lead, having one room above, floored with boards, the door 
whereof opens into the said alley ; and one other room below, 
paved with tile, the door whereof opens into the Oringe Garden ; 
having also in the sides thereof several lights of glass ; the 
materials of which house we value to be worth ^^30. 

The North side of the said alley, very near as far as the said Lower 
Manor House doth extend itself in length, to wit, from the East ®^® " 
end thereof to the end of the Birdcage westward, is railed with 
turned baUusters of free stone, well battled with stone, and 
cemented with lead and iron ; betwixt which rails and the said 
Manor House are several little grass plot courts, which lie level 
with the lowest rooms of the said Manor House ; over the middle 
of which courts lies the said pavement that leads from the said 
Hall door to the ascent of the said Upper Level, railed with 
the said stone rails on each side thereof, in a very graceful 
manner ; in two of which courts there grow three great and fair 
Figtrees, the branches whereof by the spreading and dilating of Fig trees, 

21 



322 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

themselves in a very large proportion, but yet in a most decent 
manner, cover a very great part of the walls of the South side 
of the said Manor House, being a very great and munificent 
ornament thereunto ; into which little courts there are several 
descents of i6 steps from the said alley ; in one of which courts 
there is an oval cistern of lead, set about with stone, having a 
pipe of lead in it ; the outward walls of which little courts are 
planted with young Figtrees ; the profits and contents of which 
little courts are comprised in the aforesaid yearly value and 
admeasurement of the said Upper or Higher Garden ; but we 
value the said oval cistern at two pounds, and the said 3 great 
Fig-trees and other young Fig-trees at twelve pounds ten shillings, 
and the said free-stone rails at, in all, £34. los. 
Birdcage ^^® other of the said little courts is fitted with a birdcage, 
Fountain, having three open turrets, very well wrought for the sitting and 
perching of birds ; and also having standing in it one very fair 
and handsome fountain, with three cisterns of lead belonging to 
it, and many several small pipes of lead, gilded, which, when they 
flow and fall into the cisterns, make a pleasant noise. The 
turrets, fountain, and little court are all covered with strong 
iron wire, and lie directly under the windows of the two rooms 
of the said Manor House called the Balcony Room and the Lord's 
Chamber ; from which Balcony Room, one pavement of black 
and white marble containing 104 foot, railed with rails of wood 
on each side thereof, extends itself into the said alley over the 
middle of the said birdcage. This birdcage is a great ornament 
both to the House and Garden ; the materials whereof and the 
said fountains and cistern, and the said marble pavement and 
rails, we value to be worth in the whole at £2$. 4s. 
Tarras. In the height of the said Higher Level there is one fair green 

[Terrace.] tarras or walk, very well turfed, extending itself two hundred and 
thirty yards from East to West, and containing twenty-five foot 
in the breadth thereof ; the North side whereof is planted with 
lime trees of very good bulks, and of a very high growth, growing, 
both tops, bodies, and branches, in a most uniform and regular 
manner ; the height whereof, being perspicuous to the country 
round about, renders them a very special ornament to the whole 
house. The south side of the said turfed tarras is planted with 
Elms, betwixt every one whereof grows a Cypress tree, well 
planted and ordered, much adorning and setting forth the com- 
pleteness of the tarras ; besides which there are on either side of 
the said tarras, betwixt every tree, borders of box, very well 
ordered, adding also a further ornament thereunto ; which tarras 
and borders we value to be worth £17. 2s. 6d. 
At the east end of the said turf tarras there stands one fair 



PARLIAMENTARY SURVEY OF WIMBLEDON 323 

banqueting house, most of wood ; the model thereof containing a Banquet- 
fair round in the middle of four angles, covered with blue slate, i^g 
and ridged and guttered with lead, wainscoted round from the °^^®* 
bottom to the roof, varnished with green ^vithin and without, 
benched in the angles, having sixteen windows or covers of the 
same wainscot, to open or shut at pleasure, and having also 
sixteen half rounds of glass to enlighten the room when those "^^e 
covers are shut up ; the floor paved with painted tile in the angles, Qafden 
and with squared stone in the middle ; in one of which angles 
stands a table of artificial stone very well polished ; and in every 
of the said angles, besides the said benches, there stands one 
wainscot chair. There are to the said banqueting house, two The 
double leaved doors, the one pair of which doors opens in the Higher 
very middle of the said tarras, the outside thereof being gilt, with L^^'®^- 
several coats of arms ; the other of the said leaved doors opens 
into a fair walk within the Park, planted with Elms and Lime 
trees, extending itself from the said banqueting house in a direct 
line eastward, to the very Park pale. The round of the said 
banqueting house is handsomely arched ; within which thirteen 
heads or statues, gilded, stand in a circular form, adding very 
much to the beauty of the whole room. The materials of 
this house, the said table and chairs, we value to be worth 
£66. 13s. 4d. 

At the west end of the said turfed tarras there stands one Garden 
other Garden or Summer house, covered with blue slate, and House, 
ridged, and guttered with lead, wainscoted and benched round, 
paved with square tile ; in which stands one table of Ranee stone, 
set in a frame of wood. There are two doors belonging to this 
garden house, the one opening into the said tarras, and the other 
opening into the Churchyard, into an alley or walk therein, 
leading to the Church door, planted on either side thereof with 
Sicamore trees. The materials of this house, and the said table, 
we value to be worth £1'^. 6s. 8d. 

Betwixt the ascent from the said Lower Level and the said 
turfed tarras, there are on each side of the gravelled alley that 
leads from that ascent to the said tarras, three grass plot walks 
planted with fruit trees of divers sorts and kinds, both pleasant 
for taste and profitable for use ; the borders of which grass plots 
are Coran^ trees ; the value of which trees and borders doth 
herein and hereafter appear in the several particulars thereof ; 
the value of the grass plots being comprised in the foresaid yearly 
value of the whole Upper Garden. 

In the South of the said turfed tarras there are planted one Maze, 
great Maze, and one Wilderness, which being severed with one 

^ Currant. 

21 — 2 



324 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



The 
Wilder- 
ness. 



The 

Higher 

Level. 



Private 
Walk. 



Shadow 
houses. 



[Lime 
trees and 
Elms.] 

Cypress 
trees. 



Cherry 
trees. 



gravelled alley in or near the middle of the said turfed tarras, sets 
forth the Maze to lie towards the east, and the Wilderness towards 
the west. The Maze consists of young trees, wood[s], and sprays 
of a good growth and height, cut out into several meanders, circles, 
semicircles, windings, and intricate turnings, the walks or intervals 
whereof are all grass plots. This Maze, as it is now ordered, adds 
very much to the worth of the Upper Level. The Wilderness (a 
work of a vast expense to the maker thereof) consists of many 
young trees, woods, and sprays of a good growth and height, cut 
and formed into several ovals, squares, and angles, very well 
ordered ; in most of the angular points whereof, as also in the 
centre of every oval, stands one Lime tree or Elm. All the alleys 
of this wilderness, being in number eighteen, are of a gravelled 
earth, very well ordered and maintained ; the whole work being 
compiled with such order and decency, as that it is not one of 
the least of the ornaments of the said Manor or Mansion House. 
The foresaid alley dividing the said Maze and Wilderness is 
planted on each side thereof with Lime trees and Elms, betwixt 
every tree whereof grows a Cypress tree ; at the south end of 
which alley, and in the wall that parts the said Upper Garden 
from the Vineyard Garden, betwixt two fair pillars of brick, there 
are set fair and large pair of railed gates, of good ornament to 
both the said gardens. On the South side of the said Maze and 
Wilderness there is one close or private gravelled walk, inclosed 
on each side thereof with a very high and well grown hedge of 
thorn, extending itself from the East wall to the West wall of the 
said Upper Garden ; at each end of which close walk there stands 
one little shadow or summer house, covered with blue slate and 
ridged with lead, and fitted for resting places. Which Maze and 
Wilderness, over and besides the trees thereof, which are herein 
hereafter valued amongst the other trees of the Upper Garden, and 
the materials of the said two shadow or summer houses, we 
value to be worth £90. 

There are in the said Upper Garden one hundred thirty one 
Lime trees and sixty eight elms, of good growths, worth in the 
gross at ;^44. 13s. 

There are in the said higher and lower level of the said Upper 
Garden one hundred twenty three Cypress trees of divers growths, 
which, although they are not of any great profit, yet, as they are 
now planted, they exceedingly adorn and set forth the said upper 
garden, which trees, one with another, we value to be worth in 
the whole £30. 15s. 

There are also in the said higher and lower level an hundred 
and nineteen Cherry trees, well planted and ordered, and 
of a great growth in themselves, the fruit whereof cannot but 



PARLIAMENTARY SURVEY OF WIMBLEDON 325 

be of a great yearly value ; which trees we value to be worth 

i'29- 15s. 

There are also in the said higher and lower level one hundred Fruit 
and fifty fruit trees, of divers kinds of apples and pears, pleasant ^^^^^' 
and profitable ; these trees we value to be worth £37. los. 

There are growng to the walls of the said Upper Garden, fifty Wall 
three wall fruit trees of divers sorts of fruit, as apricots, may ^"* ^' 
cherries, duke cherries, pear, plums, boone crityans,^ french pears, 
and many other sorts of most rare and choice fruits ; which trees, 
one with another, in the whole we value at £13. 5s. 

In and about the said upper garden there are thirteen muska- Vmes. 
dine Vines, well ordered and planted, bearing very sweet grapes, 
and those in abundance at the season of the year ; which we value 
to be worth £3. 5s. 

There also are in the said upper garden two other fair Fig- Fig trees, 
trees, well planted and ordered, which we value to be worth los. 

The borders of box, rosemary, corants, and the roots of flowers Box 
and herbs belonging to the said upper garden, and not herein °^ ^'^^' 
before valued, we estimate to be worth £2^. 17s. 6d. 

There is one parcel of land belonging to the said upper garden, The 
containing four perches of land, called the Hartichoke Garden, ^^^^' 
lying on the west end of the said lower level ; unto which there garden 
are 12 steps of descent ; the ground whereof is ordered for tlie 
growth of hartichokes, the value and contents whereof are com- 
prised in the foresaid yearly value and admeasurement of the said 
upper garden ; but the roots and plants of hartichokes therein 
now growing and planted we value at £1. los. 

There are in the said Hartichoke Garden five very handsome 
Bay trees, which we value to be worth £1. 

And also of one parcel of ground adjoining to the North and The 
East wall of the Oringe Garden, commonly called the Phesant Q^^^gn 
Garden, severed from the Park with a pale of deal boards of 
10 foot high ; within which is one phesant house, boarded within 
and without, containing 6 rooms, tiled overhead, and also one 
shed, tiled, containing 4 rooms, wherein the phesant keeper used 
to live and lodge ; one great partition of deal boards, ten foot 
high and fifty yards long ; twenty partitions of lattices, sixty 
three young sicamore trees, two oaks, two ash trees, three birch 
trees, ten fruit trees, and a descent of twenty three steps of stone ; 
all which we value to be worth £26. 13s. The Phesant garden 
contains upon admeasurement one acre, — roods, and 5 perches, 
[and] is worth per annum £l. 

And also of one other garden called the Vineyard [Garden], The 
adjoining to the foresaid upper or great garden upon the East Q^rden^^ 
1 =bon chrHiens, pears. 



326 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

side thereof, and severed from it with a brick wall of ten foot 
high, and also severed from Wymbledon Park with a brick wall 
ten foot high upon the east side thereof, and severed from the 
highway or lane leading from Wymbledon town to the Iron Plate 
Mills with a brick wall of nine foot high upon the South side 
thereof, and from the Kitchen garden with another wall of bricks 
of ten foot high on the West side thereof, containing upon 
admeasurement ten acres, one rood, twenty-three perches ; worth 
per annum £io. 5s. 

Memorandum, that the said Vineyard Garden is divided into 

twelve several triangles, inclosed within four fair walks or allies, 

twenty three foot broad, lying round the said garden, two whereof 

are gravelled walks, and the other two grass plots. Eight of the 

foresaid twelve triangles make in themselves one square, in the 

middle whereof, is one fair round or circle of gravelled earth, in 

the centre whereof stands one Lime tree, having eight several 

walks or allies, 23 foot broad, running across and angular ways, 

answerable to the foresaid eight triangles ; the insides of which 

eight walks or allies are planted with Lime trees, and other young 

and well planted trees and borders of Currant trees and Respass^ 

trees. The other four triangles, having angular and cross walks 

within them, though not so fully completed as the other eight 

triangles, make one square, and, being reduced to a regular form 

with the other eight triangles, make a very complete garden plot. 

Within which said twelve several triangles there are growing 

five hundred and seven fruit trees of divers sorts and kinds of 

fruits, pleasant and profitable, which we value, one tree with 

another, in the whole at £83. lis. 

Lime There are also one hundred forty four Lime trees, very well 

trees. planted and ordered, which, growing in a regular form in the 

insides of the said triangles, are a great grace and special ornament 

to the whole garden ; which Lime trees we value, one tree with 

another, in the whole at £28. i6s. 

Wall The insides of three of the outward walks or allies are of 

^"^"it. latticed rails, upon which lattices there are growing one hundred 

and six trees of divers kinds of wall fruit, which one with another 

we value to be worth £10. 12s. 

Quince In the inside of the fourth outward walk or alley are sixteen 

trees. quince trees, well planted and ordered, worth £2. 13s. 

[Fruit And also upon the out borders there are growing thirty eight 

trees.] ixmt trees of pears and cherries, worth ^^3. i6s. 

Special There are growing upon three of the walls of the said Vineyard 

Wall Garden two hundred fifty and four trees, of divers special sorts 

and kinds of wall fruits, as apricots, pears, pear plums, may 

1 = Raspberry. 



Fruit. 



PARLIAMENTARY SURVEY OF WIMBLEDON 327 

cherries, boone critians, and divers other kinds of fruits, both 
curious for taste and variety, and very profitable for use ; the 
trees, being very well planted and ordered, we estimate to be 
worth, one tree with another, in the whole, at £84. 13s. 4d. 

There are also forty six Sicamore trees, growing along the Sicamore 
fourth wall of the said Vineyard Garden in a regular form ; which *'^®^^- 
wall standing to the highway or lane, the said trees are a great 
ornament to that part of the Vineyard Garden ; which we value 
to be worth ly. 13s. 4d. 

There also are seven Dutch Elms growing in some of the Dutch 
borders of the said eight triangles in a regular form, which we Elms, 
value to be worth ;^i. 15s. 

There are in the said Vineyard Garden, divers neat and hand- [Coran 
some borders of coran trees, respasses, strawberry beds, roots, *'^^^^' ^'^'^ 
flowers, and herbs, all very well ordered, which we value to be 
worth £^. 

There are also in the said Vineyard Garden, two little garden. Garden 
summer, or shadow houses, covered with blue slate, ceiled and ^^^ses. 
benched and floored with brick ; the one standing in the wall at 
the end of the walk that leads in a line diametrically opposite to 
the hall door of the said Manor or Mansion House, and very much 
graces that walk ; the other, standing in the East wall of the 
said Vineyard garden, at the end of the walk or alley that 
leads up the middle of the Vineyard, from East to West ; the 
materials of which two garden houses we value to be worth 

There are in and belonging to the said Vineyard Garden, two Rollers, 
rollers of stone with very large and handsome frames of Iron ; and 
also there are belonging to that said Oringe and Upper Garden 
6 rollers of stone, fitted as aforesaid, worth in all ;^i6. 

And also of one other garden called the Kitchen Garden, lying The 
and being between the said Vineyard Garden and the highway or Kitchen 
lane leading from the town of Wymbledon unto the Iron Plate ^^ ®"' 
Mills, and fenced with a pale upon the North west and South 
west side thereof, and with the South west wall of the said 
Vineyard garden on the North east side thereof, containing upon 
admeasurement two roods and twenty six perches of ground, 
worth per annum ;^i. los. 

Memorandum, that in the said Kitchen Garden there are forty 
trees of very good growth, and pleasant wall fruits, well planted 
and ordered, which we value (one tree with another) in the whole 

at ;fl0. 

There are also ten Laurel trees, well planted and ordered, which [Laurels.] 

we estimate to be well worth in the gross £1. los. 

There is also one fair tree, called the Irish Arbutis, standing Arbutis 

tree. 



328 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

in the middle of the said Kitchen Garden, very lovely to look upon, 
worth £1. los. 
[Cherry There are also thirty eight Cherry trees well planted and 
trees.] ordered, in the said Kitchen Garden, which we value one with 

another to be worth in the whole the sum of £^. 15s. 
[Borders There are also in the said Kitchen Garden very great and large 
mary°^&c 1 ^°^^^^^ °^ Rosemary, Rue, White Lavender, and great variety 
of excellent herbs, and some choice flowers, and in the South east 
end of the said Kitchen Garden there is a Muskmilion^ ground, 
trenched, manured, and very well ordered for the growth of 
Mus[k]milions ; which borders, herbs, flowers, and Mus[k]milion 
ground we value to be worth £'^. 

Memorandum, that there is one door belonging to the said 
Kitchen Garden, opening into the Vineyard Garden, and one other 
door which opens into the highway or lane that leads from 
Wymbledon town to Wjnnbledon Churchyard. 
Walls. The brick walls of all the gardens aforesaid and of the courts 

hereafter mentioned do contain one hundred and seventy pole or 
square rod of wall, at 16 foot and | to the pole, which we value 
to be worth £3. per rod, in toto, ;i^5io. 

The rest of the Survey relates to the Courts, ascents, woodyard, 
dairy house, slaughterhouse yard, the site, the paddock, the 
Brewer's close, barns, Wymbledon Park, a Dutch barn, deer, 
timber trees in the Park, paddock, &c. (valued at ;^2,i74. os. 6d.) ; 
springs and coppices of wood (;^2,020. 3s. lod.) ; fishponds, 
Harpham's farm, a dovecote, meadow called the Great Bitterns, 
Wjonbledon Common, Putney Common, Moreclack Common, 
pollard trees growing on the said Commons (;£500.), &c. 

It is signed by Hu : Hindley, John Inwood, John Wale, and 
John Webb, and examined by William Webb, Surveyor General. 



PARLIAMENTARY SURVEYS 

HERTFORD, No. 26. 

SURVEY OF THEOBALDS.2 

Extracts from the Survey of the Manor of Theobalds, April, 
1650: 

House, rooms, galleries, &c. 

The Pheasant Garden. — A long description of a house called 
the Coale Courte or Scaldinge House, &c. : " which said house 

^ = Melons. 2 Transcribed from the original MS. in the Record Office 



PARLIAMENTARY SURVEY OF THEOBALDS 329 

adioyneth unto an orchard or garden called by y* name of the 
Pheasant garden, w^^ conteynes one Roode ten poles and 
4 primes, and is excellentlie well planted with wall trees, (viz') 
7 Figg trees, 4 Cherrie trees, and one Roase marie tree, 2 Vines, 
fower Peach trees, 5 Apricock trees, one Peare tree, six Damas 
and Damson Plumme trees, one Currant tree, and one Bay tree, 
planted in y^ middle with Gooseberrie trees, and other younge 
fruite trees, and a bricke wall aboute y^ same, abuttinge North 
on y^ passage leadinge east from y^ Laundrie," (&c.). Value of 
the house, court, and garden, £g. los. 

The Laundrie house, — rooms, barn, stables, &c. Alsoe one 
passage or way now used as a Garden, lyinge on y^ West parte of 
the afforesayd house called the Laundrie house, and leadeth from 
the house to y« said garden, called y^ Laundrie Garden, con- 
teyninge in length 11 perches and a halfe, and in breadth on y^ 
East parte two perches and a halfe of land, and on the West parte 
one pearch ; and there is planted on y^ North side of the walls, 
fower Vine trees, one Almond tree, 3 Plumme trees, 5 Barberrie 
trees, and on y^ other side Rose trees, and y^ middle dugg up for 
Inions, lettice, and y^ like. And at y^ west end of y^ same one 
Doore way goeinge into another garden called by y- name of the 
Laundrie garden, conteyninge 3 roodes and fower pole, com- 
passed aboute with a high brick wall, consistinge of one streight 
gravelled walke, betweene the Bricke wall and the hedge or 
Rainge of Gooseberrie trees and Rose trees, with two stepps 
discendinge into y« middle of y^ garden ; and round y^ garden 
are several wall trees planted, (viz') 5 aprecock trees, 11 peach 
trees, 28 vines, 55 cherrie trees, bearinge choyce and rare cherries ; 
also 12 bay trees, with divers other trees ; as also a summer or 
shaddow house standinge in y^ middle of the affores'^ garden, 
seated round, and built turratt fashion, and covered with slatt, 
with a nurcerie in y^ middle of y* garden, and some apple and 
peare trees, w'^ divers other/small stockes andj.younge plantes, 
moted round. 

The Privie Garden. — One other Garden called the Privie 
Garden, alias Kitchen Garden, conte3minge 17 pole, lyinge 
betweene y^ affors'^ Garden on the east and Theobaldes Parke on 
y^ west, w'^ a pleasant gravelie walke lyinge betweene the wall 
and a handsome quicksett hedge cutt into formes, planted in the 
middle of the hedges with 28 cherrie trees, goeinge East, West, 
and North of y® s'^ garden, l5ange 8 stepps high in ascent from 
ye middle of the garden ; and y*^ next walke 8 stepps discendinge 
into a levell greene grasse walke, betweene y^ affores'^ hedge, 
standinge 8 stepps high, and another quick sett hedge w^^ goeth 
round y^ Garden, Avith a square knott in y^ middle of y^ Garden 



330 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

turned into a compleate fashion and shape, with 3 ascents, 
boorded and planted with TuHpps, LiUies, Piannies, and divers 
other sorts of flowers. Also y= knott is compassed aboute with a 
Quadrangle or square squadron Quicksett hedge of white thorne 
and privett of nine foote in height, cutt into a compleate fashion, 
w'^ fower round arbors with seates in y'^'" in each corner, w* two 
Doorewayes betweene each arbor, in all the fower sides, and 
betweene y^ two Doore wayes in each side runs out a Roman 
T : made of y^ same sort of hedginge, and of the same height. 
The head of everie T poyntes to y® 3 paire of staires, dis- 
cendinge downe in to y« Levell from y^ gravell walke. At the 
angle corners of the outside low squadron hedge, is planted at 
each corner in y^ hedge 7 faire Cherrie trees. Also A Dooreway 
in y^ sayd garden, leading into y^ Mulberrie walke. W*^^ sayd 
garden is walled round, and there is growinge to the walls, 25 
Apricock trees, 3 figg trees, fower plumme trees, one peach 
tree, and one cherrie tree. All w**^ sayd house and gardens 
(except y^ 5 Roomes under y« afforesayd Divided gallerie) are 
in ye occupacion of Mr. John Southworth, and is worth per 
annum 20'. 

The Create Garden. — One Garden called the Greate Garden, 
adioyninge North on ye affores'^ Cloyster lyinge under y Kinges 
Presence Chamber, and others, incompassed East, South, and 
West with a good brick wall, and North with the Capitall 
house ; w^*^ Garden conteynes by admeasurem' 7 acres, 2 roodes, 
37 pole, and is worth per annum ;^i4. Memorandum, in the 
s^ Garden there are nine large compleate squares or knotts 
lyinge upon a Levell in y« middle of y® s'' Garden, whereof one 
is sett forth with box borders in y^ likenesse of y^ Kinges armes, 
verrie artificiallie and exquisitely made ; one other plott is planted 
with choice flowers ; the other 7 knotts are all grasse knotts, 
handsomely turfed in the intervalls or little walkes. All the 
aifores*^ knotts are compassed aboute with a Quicksett hedge 
of White thorne, and privett, cutt into a handsome fashion ; and 
at everie angle or corner standes a faire cherrie tree of a greate 
groth, with a Ciprus in the middle of most of the knotts, and 
at some of the corners ; w*=^ knotts, Quicksett hedge, and y^ 
Flower Rootes we value to be worth £S- 

The Marble Fountaine. — In the middlemost knott of the 
affores^ nine knotts as alsoe in the middle of y^ Garden standeth 
a large handsome Fountaine of white Marble standinge upon 3 
stone stepps, (&c.). 

In the middle of two of the affores^ greene knotts, . . . 
standeth two figures of wainscott well carved. . . . 

In the South side of vr^^ sayd Garden, and in the middle of 



PARLIAMENTARY SURVEY OF THEOBALDS 331 

a gravelled walke ... a faire banquetinge house built upon 
stone pillars, in y^ fashion of a halfe round (&c.). 

There are growinge to the walles of the Capitall house side 
in the garden 5 Apricocke trees and 14 Muscadine Vines well 
ordered and planted, 4'. 15% 

51 Ciprus trees, 12'. i5-\ 

25 Cherrie trees, 7'. lO"*. 

240 Lyme, Elm, and Sycamore trees, worth £yo. 

12 Black Cherry trees, 3', 

There are also descriptions of eight gravelled walks, two 
Garden houses, two small rooms or seats, Cherrie trees, the 
Thorne hedge, other thorn hedges. Black Cherrie trees, Fruite 
trees. Bay trees, two seats, two stone crosses, 6 stepps, Vine 
trees and Barberrie trees, the White thorne hedge, the Maze 
Garden, the Tripesa (of 8 triangles made of white thorne), Fruite 
trees, a doore leadinge into y^ longe greene Mulberrie walke, 
the Fountaine Courte, the Middle Courte, the Diall Courte, the 
Base Courte, the Dovehouse Courte, the Stonie close, iii trees 
each side of a walk, the 14 Elms, the Greene Walke, Mulberrie 
trees (72 worth 8'. 12^), the Orchard, the Dovehouse. 

This survey is signed by Raphe Baldwyn, Ric. Heiwood, 
Rowland Brasbridge, and John Brudenall, and examined by 
William Webb, Surveyor General. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

OF PRINTED WORKS ON 

ENGLISH GARDENING 

FROM THE EARLIEST RECORDED DATE TO THE YEAR 1837 

Arranged Chronologically under the names of Authors or Trans- 
lators, and under the date of the first edition of their earhest work ; 
or under the title of the Book and date of the first edition, when the 
writers' names are unknown. 

Besides referring to well-known general Bibliographies, I occasion- 
ally mention that on Gardening Works hy G. W. Johnson, published 
in 1829. An asterisk affixed to any article implies that the book has 
not been seen by or for me. 

1516. The Grete Herball. Imprented at London in Southwark by me 
Peter Treveris . . MDXVL the xx day of June. Folio. * 

This edition was described by Ames in his Typographical Antiquities ; but there is no 
record of its having been seen by anyone since. 

The grete herball . . which is translated out y<= Frensshe into Englysshe . . 
With the mark of Peter Treveris. Folio. Undated. * 

Described by HazI tt as printed in " 1525-6 " being certainly not earlier than 1525, and 
apparently anterior to the dated issue of 1526. 

The grete herball whiche giveth parfyt Knowlege and understandyng of 
all maner of herbes, etc. . . . Translated out of Frenche into 
Englishe. . . . Also it geveth full parfyte understandynge of the 
booke lately prentyd by me [Peter Treveris] named the noble 
experiens of the vertuous handwurke of surgery. . . Imprentyd at 
London in Southwarke by me Peter Treueris . . MDXXVI, the xxvi. 
day of July. Small folio. 
Several copies are extant. Having been quite unable to trace the supposed earlier 

editions, I believe this one to be the first. 

The grete herball. MDXXVII 18 April. * 

Such an edition is described by Ames as printed by Treveris for Laurence Andrew. 
The grete herball . . Peter Treueris . . MDXXIX, the xvii day of Marce. 

FoUo. 
The grete herball newly corrected. Londini, in edibus Thome Gybson. 

Anno MDXXXIX. FoHo. 
The greate Herball . . newlye corrected and diUgently oversene. . . 

London, Jhon Kynge, MDLXI. Small folio. 
1523. [Fitzherbert's Husbandry] A newe tracte or treatyse moost profyt- 

able For All Husbandmen . . 

Imprinted . . by Rycharde Pynson [in or before 1523]. Small 

4to. * 

In Pinson's edition of Sir Anthony FiUherbert's Boke of Surveying, printed in 1523, this 

book is mentioned as having been already published. Its date cannot therefore be later than 

that year. The authorship by Sir Anthony Fitzherbert is considered doubtful, and in the 

B. M. Catalogue it is suggested that John Fitzherbert may have been the writer ; but it is 

332 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 333 

clear that Pinson and Berthelet both regarded the judge as the author. For a full discussion 
of the subject, it will be well to consult the reprint of the Treatise, which was edited by 
W. VV. Skeat for the English Dialect Society in 1882, and also a paper read by Sir Ernest Clark 
before the Bibliographical Society in 1896, in which the arguments in favour of the authorship 
of John, Sir Anthony's elder brother, are very strong. 

1523. [Fitzherbert's Husbandry]. Another edition. Small 4to. in the 
B. M., supposed to have been printed about 1525. 

another edition. Thomas Berthelet, 1534. Small 8vo. 

A copy by the same printer, bound up with a colophon dated 1537, was in the Amherst 
Library (sec Hand-list by S. de Ricci, No. 676). 

another edition, by the same printer in 1548. Small Bvo. 

Various other editions exist. 

1525. W. C. [Walter Gary ?] Here begynnyth a newe mater, the whiche 
sheweth and treateth of y'^ vertues & proprytes of herbes, the 
which is called an Herball. London, R. Banckes, 1525. Small 4to. 

another edition. Robert Redman [1530 ?]. Small 8vo. 

A boke of the propreties of Herbes called an herball . . Also a 

generall rule of all maner of Herbes drawen out of an auncyent 
booke of Phisyck by W. C. 

W. Copland for J. Wyght [1552 ?]. Small 8vo. 
The letters W. C. are supposed by theB. M. cataloguers and by the older writers to mean 

Walter Cary, whose name appears on the Farewell to Physicke, printed by Denham in 1583 ; 

but others, including the writer in the Diet, of Nat. Biogr., take them to mean William 

Copland the printer ; and it is to be remembered that theyoccur for the first time in Copland's 

edition. 

other editions by Skot and Kytson ; both undated. 

1527. Jerome of Brunswick-Andrewe. The Vertuose Boke of Distyl- 
lacyon of the waters of all maner of Herbes . . compyled by . . 
Master Iherom bruynswyke. And now newly Translate out of 
Duyche into Englysshe [by Laurence Andrewe]. Imprinted at 
London . . by me Laurens Andrewe . . Mcccccxxvii. Folio. 
The translator (who was also the printer) gives his name in the Prologue. 
(An edition of 1525 is mentioned in Herbert's Ames ; but it had probably no existence.) 
There were two issues of the book in 1527, but only the leaves at beginning and end where 
reprinted. The body of the book is identical in each. The first issue is dated the 17 April ; 
the second is dated the 18 April. They are both in the British Museum. 
See also imder date 1561. 

[1530 ?] Macer-Linacre. Macer's Herbal practysid by Doctor Linacro. 
Translated out of laten into Englysshe . . R. Wyer, London . 
(About 1530.) 8vo. 

A newe Herball of Macer . . R. Wyer. (About 1535.) 8vo. 

1538. William Turner. Libellus de Re Herbaria novus, in quo herbarum 

aliquot nomina greca, Latina & Anglica habes . . Apud J. Byd- 
dellum, Londini, 1538. 4to. eight leaves. 
A reprint in facsimile was edited by Mr. B. D. Jackson in 1877, with a life of Turner. 
Privatdy printed. 

The names of herbes in Greke, Latin, Enghshe, Duche & Frenche 

wyth the commune names that Herbaries and Apotecaries use. 
London, John Day and William Seres [1548]. Small 8vo. 

A Newe Herball, wherein are conteyned the names of Herbes in 

Greke, Latin, Englysh, Duch, Frenche, and in the Potecaries and 
Herbaries Latin. London, S. Mierdman, 1551. Small folio. 

The seconde parte of W. Turners herball . . Here unto is joyned 

also a booke of the bath of Baeth in Englaude . . Collen, A. Birck- 
man, 1562. Small folio. 

A most excellente and perfecte Homish Apothecarye. 

Translated out of the Almaine Speche into English by Jhon HoUybush (probably=William 
Turner). Collen 1561. /The two parts of the Herbal and this treatise are frequently found 
bound together.). 



334 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1538. William Turner [continued). The first and seconde partes . . also a 
Booke of the bath of Baeth. CoUen, A. Birckman, 1568. Small 
Folio, 

1540. [Andrew Borde] The boke for to Lerne a man to be wyse in buylding 
of his howse . . The boke for a good husbande to lerne. Robert 
Wyer, no date [about 1540]. Small 8vo. 
Republished a year or two later by the same printer as part of the Compedyous Regyment 
bearing Borde's name. 

1550. Anthony Ascham. A Little Herball of the Properties of Herbes, 
newly amended and corrected . . . delaring what Herbes hath in- 
fluence of Certaine Sterres and Constellations. London, Jhon 
Kynge, 1550. i2mo. 
another edition, London, Wyllyam Powell, 1550. i2mo. 

1557. Thomas Tusser. A hundreth good pointes of husbandrie. R. Tottell 

London, 1557. In verse. 

(The copy in the British Museum is presumably vmique.) Several varying and augmented 
editions of the " Hundreth good Pointes" were issued between 1561 and 1571. In 1562 
appeared an edition, probably the third, entitled " A Hundreth Good Poyntes of Husbandry, 
lately marled unto a hundreth good poyntes of huswifry, newly corrected and ampified with 
diverse propre lessons for housholders." R. Tottel. London, 1562. The first edition of 
the " Five Hundreth Points " (Tusser's enlargement of the former) came out in 1573. 

Five hundreth points of good husbandry united to as many 

of good huswiferie , , R. Tottel, London, 1573 . . 2 parts. Small 

4to. 
Reissued at least twice (in 1576 and 1577) before the appearance of the final and complete 
edition in 1580. That of 1577 was "now lately augmented with diverse approved lessons 
concerning Hoppes and Gardening." 

Five hundred pointes of good Husbandrie . , . corrected, better 

ordered, and newly augmented to a fourth part more. Henrie 

Denham, London, 1580. Small 4to. 

The parent edition of all which followed, and the last which was published by Tusser himself. 
The reprints were numerous from that time onwards. 

Fine hundred pointes of good husbandrie. The edition of 1580 

collated with those of 1573 and 1577 . . with a reprint of " A Hun- 
dreth good pointes . . 1557." Edited by W. Payne and Sidney J. 
Herrtage, Early English Dialect Society, London, 1878. 8vo. 

1558. Alexis-Warde. The secretes of Alexis of Piedmont containyng 

excellente remedies against divers diseases . . . Translated out of 
Frenche into EngUsh by Wyllyam Warde , . . I. Kingston for 
N. Inglande. London, 1558. 4to. (B. M. Cat.). 

another edition, " neuely corrected and amended .... Imprynted 

at London by Rowland Hall for Nicholas England, 1 562. Small 4to. 
(In three parts, with a separate pagination and Index to each.) 

other edition, 1568. 1580. 

1559. Peter Morwyng, A new book of Destination of Waters called the 

Treasure of Euonymous, containing the wonderful hid Secrets 
of Nature. . . . Tanslated (with great dihgence and care) out 
of Latin by Peter Morwyng, Felowe of MagdaUne CoUedge in 
Oxforde. Imprinted at London by John Day. [There is no 
date on the title-page, but the preface is dated 2nd of May, iSSQ-l- 
Small 4to. ; 

another edition, dated ist day of June 1565. John Day, London. 

Small 4to. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 335 

1561. (Braunschweig-Hollybush) A most excellent and Perfecte Homish 

Apothecarye, or homely physick booke . . Translated out of 

the Almaine speche . . by Ihon Hollybush . A. Birckman, Collen, 

1 56 1. Folio. 

It has been alleged that the name of John Hollybush in this book is merely pseudonymous 

for Miles Coverdale (as it was in the Latin-English New Testament of 1538), but it is much 

more probable that it is the pseudonym of Dr. William Turner. See imder the date 1538. 

1563. Thomas Hill (or Hyll). A most briefe and pleasaunt treatyse, 
teachynge howe to dress, sowe, and set a garden . . 
T. Marshe, London, 1563. Small 8vo. 
Probably the earliest appearance of "The Arte of Gardening." 

A most Briefe and Pleasante Treatise, teaching how to dresse, 

sowe and set a Garden . . . gathered out of the principallest Authors 
. . . Imprinted ... by Ihon Day for Thomas Hyll. Small 8vo. 
A book with the above title was in the Amherst Library {see Hand-list No. 691), and is 
probably the second edition. 

The proffitable Arte of Gardening, now the third tyme set fourth 

. . To this annexed, two . . treatises . . T. Marshe, London, 1568. 
Small 8vo. 

This is the third edition of the " Most briefe and pleasaunt treatyse." 

The prof&table Arte . . Whereunto is newly added a treatise of 

the Arte of grafting and planting of trees. H. Bynneman, London, 
1574. Small 4to. 

This edition bears upon its title the statement " now the third time set forth," just as in 
the edition of 1568. 

Later editions were printed in 1579, 1586, 1593, and 1608, and in the last two of these a 
" Treatise on Bees " is included. 

The author was probably the same person as Didymus Mountain who wrote the Gardener's 
Labyrinth. 

Didymus Mountain [Thomas Hill] The Gardener's Labyrinth : con- 
taining a discourse of the Gardener's life , . . [completed by Henry 
Dethick]. H. Bjmneman, London, 1577. Small 4to. 

Another edition printed by John Wolfe, 1586. Small 4to. 

Later editions appeared in 1594 (printed by A. Islip) and 1608. 

1570. Matthias de L'Obel Stirpium Adversaria Nova . . 
Londini, 1570-71. Folio. 
Written in collaboration with Petrus Pena, under whose name it is usually placed. 

Accessit altera pars . . T. Purfoot, Londini, 1605 . . 3 parts in 

I. Folio. 

Plantarum seu Stirpium Historia cui adnexum est Adversariorum 

volumen. Antwerp, Plantin, 1576. Folio. 

Plantarum seu Stirpium Icones. Antwerp, Plantin. 1581. 

Oblong 4to. (Reprinted in 1591.) 

1572. Leonard Mascall. A Booke of the Arte and maner, howe to plant 
and graffe all sortes of trees ... by one of the Abbey of Saint 
Vincent in Fraunce, with an addition of certaine Dutch practices, 
set forth and Englished by L. Mascall. Henrie Denham for John 
Wight [1572]. 4to. 
Other editions, in 1575, 1580 ?, 1582, and 1592 (printed by T. East for T. Wright). 

1574. Reynolde Scot. A perfite platforme of a Hoppe Garden . . London, 
Henrie Denham, 1574. Small 4to. 
Reprinted in 1576 and 1578, " newly corrected and augmented." 
Also with other treatises in the " Countryman's Recreation," 1653. 

The Secrets of Albertus Magnus of the Vertues of Herbs, Stones 
and certain Beasts. London. Small 8vo. Neithear author's name 
or date. 



336 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1577. Heresbach-Googe. Foure Bookes of Husbandry, collected by M. Con- 

radus Heresbachius . . Newely Englished, and increased, by 
Barnabe Googe. London, Richard Watkins, 1577. Small 4to. 
Other editions in 1578, 1586, 1614, 1631, and 1658. 

Monardes-Frampton. Joyfull Newes out of the newe founde worlde, 
wherein is declared the rare and singuler vertues of diuerse . . 
Hearbes . . Englished by John Frampton . . London, W. Norton, 
1577. Small 4to. 

It comprises a description and a woodcut of the Tobacco-plant. 

The Spanish author was Nicolas Monardes, frequently styled Dr. Monardus in the editions 
of the translation. 

Reprintedin 1580 and "newly corrected "in 1596. E. Alldeby the Assigne of Bonham Norton. 

1578. (Dodoens-Lyte) A Niewe Herball or Historic of Plantes . . setfowrth 

in the Doutche or Almaigne tongue by that learned D. Rembert 
Dodoens . . Nowe first translated out of French into English by 
Henry Lyte . . Antwerpe, Printed at Antwerp by " Henry Loe 
for Gerard Dewes in Paules." 1578. Small folio. 

another edition by " Henrie Lyte," imprinted ... by Ninian 

Newton. London, 1586. Small 4to. 

corrected and amended by " Henrie Lyte," imprinted by Edm. 

Bolifant. London, 1595. Small 4to. 

another edition. London, 161 9. Folio. 

The English version was made from the French translation executed by Charles de I'Ecluse 
(C. A. Clusius). 
See also 1606 : Dodoens-Lyte-Ram. 

1579. William Langham. The Garden of Health, conteyning the sundry 

rare and hidden vertues and properties of all Idndes of Simples 
and Plants gathered by long experience and industrie. London, 
1579 . . Small 4to. 
Reprinted in 1633. 

1586-7. Ralph Holinshed. Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland . . 
' London, 1586-87. 3 vols. Folio. 

This second edition (the first was published in 1577) contains in the description of England 
(by William Harrison), prefixed to the Chronicle, some references to gardens and orchards in 
England. 

1589. J. B. The Booke of Thrift, containing a Perfite Order and right 
Methode to profite lands, and other things belonging to Hus- 
bandry . newly Englished and set out by J. B. Gentleman of 
Caen in France. Printed by John Wolfe. 1589. Small 8vo. 

1592. Short Instructions very profitable and necessary for all those that 

delight in Gardening . . . translated out of French into English. 

Printed by John Wolfe, London, 1592. Small 4to. 

This little book contains 16 woodcuts in 4 gathermgs, they are very similar to those in 

T. Hill's works, some appear to be from the same blocks. The copy belonging to Earl Crewe 

is probably unique. 

1594. Sir Hugh Platt (or Plat). The Jewell House of Art and Nature. 
Conteining diuers rare and profitable Inuentions, together with 
sundry new experiments in the Art of Husbandry, Distillation, 
and Moulding . . London, Peter Short, I594- 4to. 

reprinted (by C. Bellingham, see below). London. E. Alsop. 

1653. 8vo. 

Floraes Paradise, beautified and adorned with sundry sorts of 

delicate fruites and flowers, by the industrious labour of H. P. 
knight . . London, H. L. for William Leake . . 1608. Small Svo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 337 

1594. Sir Hugh Platt (or Plat) {continued). The same work, reprinted 
under the title of The Garden of Eden. 1653. Small 4to. 
This edition was brought out, after the author's death, by his kinsman Charles Bellingham, 
who signs the dedication. Reprinted in 1654, 1659, 1660, and the sixth edition is dated 1675. 

1596. John Gerard (or Gerarde). Catalogus Arborum, fruticum ac plan- 
tarum tarn indigenarum quam exoticarum in horto Gerardi nas- 
centium. Londini, ex off. Roberti Robinson, 1596. Small 8vo. 
The copy in the British Museum is probably unique. 

another edition with the same title with the following variation : 

... in horto Johannis Gerardi Civis & Chirurgi Londinensis 
nascentium. Londini, ex ofi&cina Arnold! Hatfield impensis 
Joannis Norton, 1599. Folio. 

I have seen two copies of this catalogue, in both cases bound up with the Herbal of 1597. 

reprinted in 1876 under the title of " A Catalogue of Plants "... 

with notes, B. D. Jackson . . 

The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes . . . Engraved title 

with portrait by W. Rogers, London. Imprinted by E. BoUifant 
for B. and J. Norton, 1597. Folio. 

reprinted and " very much enlarged and amended " by Thomas 

Johnson. Printed by Adam Islip, Joice Norton and Rich. 
Whitakers. 1633. 

This immense work of standard character contains 19 preliminary leaves (including the 
engraved title), 1631 pp. of text, and 46 pp. of tables, etc. It has several hundreds of wood- 
cut illustrations. Most of them appeared in the original edition of 1597, but a large number 
were added by Johnson in 1633. 

1599. DuBRAVius — . . A New Booke of good Husbandry . . Written in Latin 
by Janus Dubravius and translated into English at the speciall 
request of George Churchey . . London, William White, 1599. 
Small 4to. 
The translator's name is not known. 

Gardner's Kitchen Garden. Profitable Instructions for the Manur- 
ing, Sowing, and Planting of Kitchen Gardens . . Edw. Allde for 
Edward White, 1599. Small 4to. * 

This first edition is so described by Lowndes, and is mentioned in Piatt's Garden of Eden ; 
but no copy has been traced. 

Profitable Instructions for the Manvring, Sowing, and Planting 

of Kitchin Gardens . . Imprinted at London by Edward Allde for 
Edward White . . 1603. Small 4to. * 

This second edition is so described de visu in Hazlitt's third Collection of Bibliographical 
Notes. He calls the author Richard Gardiner ; under which name he seeks to indicate Richard 
Gardner of Shrewsbury, a dyer and draper, who is described as a public benefactor of that 
town, in Owen and Blakeway's Shrewsbury. 

1600. Estienne and Liebault-Surflet. Maison Rustique or the Covntrie 

Farme, compiled in the French tongue by Charles Steuens and John 
Liebault, and translated by Ric. Surflet. E. BoUifant for B. 
Norton, 1600. Small 4to. 

another edition. London. Printed by Arnold Hatfield. 1606. 

Small 4to. 

another edition, augmented by Gervase Markham. 1616. 

London. Printed by Adam Islip for John Bill. 

1601. John Taverner. Certaine Experiments concerning Fish and Fruit . . 

Printed for William Ponsonby . . 1601. Small 4to. 

23 



338 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1602. The Orchard and the Garden, containing certaine necessarie, secret 

and ordinarie Knowledges in Graffting and Gardening .... 

gathered from Dutch and French. Also to know the time and 

season when it is good to sow and replant all manner of Seedes. 

London. Printed by Adam Islip. 1602. 4to. 

The above is the title or a book in the University Library, Cambridge. No other copy 
has been recorded. 

1604. N. F, The Frviterer's Secrets, containing directions, of the due 
time & manner of gathering all kinds of Fruit . . London, printed 
by R. B., solde by Roger lackson, 1604. Small 4to. 

reprinted with a different title in 1608 and 1609. See below. 

1606. Dodoens-Lyte-Ram. Rams little Dodeon. A briefe Epitome of the 

new Herbal or History of Plants . . lately translated into English 
by Hem-y Lyte . . abridged by William Ram. London, Simon 
Stafford, 1606. Small 4to. 
See 1578 : Dodoens-Lyte. 

1607. De Serres-Goffe. The Perfect Vse of Silk-Wormes and their benefit 

. . done out of the French originall of Olivier de Serres, Lord of 
Pradel, into English by Nicholas Goffe . . London, Felix Kyngston, 
1607. Small 4to. 

1608-9. N. F. The Husbandman's fruitfull Orchard, shewing diuers 
rare new secrets for the true Ordering of all sortes of Fruite in 
their due Seasons . . . London, Roger lackson, 1609. Small 4to. 
This rare work apparently had already appeared in 1608. It is the same book as the 
" Fruiterer's Secxets " of 1604. 

1609. W. S. Instructions for the increasing of Mulberie Trees, and the 
breeding of Silke-wormes for the making of Silke in this Kingdome. 
Whereunto is annexed his Majesties Letters to the Lords Liefe- 
tenants . . tending to that purpose. London, E. A. for E. Edgar, 
1609. 4to. 

1612. R. C. An Olde Thrift newly revived . . the manner of planting, pre- 

serving, and husbanding yong Trees . . London, W. S. for Richard 
Moore. 161 2. 4to. * 

Described by Hazlitt de visu in the Collections and Notes. 

1613. Arthur Standish. New Directions of Experience to the Commons 

Complaint . . for the planting of Timber and Fire-wood . . 161 3. 
4to. 

Gervase Markham. The Enghsh Hvsbandman. The First Part : 
contayning the Knowledge of the true Nature of euery Soyle , . . 
Together with the Art of Planting, Grafting, and Gardening , . 
By G. M. . . London, T. S. for John Browne, 161 3. 4to. 

The Second Booke of the English Husbandman. Conteyning 

the ordering of the Kitchen-Garden . . London, T. S. 1614. 4to. 

The work was reprinted " enlarged by the author " in 3 parts 4to. in 1635. 

Maison Rustique. 161 6. See 1600 : Estienne and Liebault- 

Surflet. 

The Country Housewifes Garden . . Together with the Husbandry 

of Bees . . with diuers new knots for gardens, by G. M. 16 17. 4to. 

The same book was reissued with Lawson's New Orchard in 161 8 and in 1648, and alone 
in 1620 and 1623. 

Markhams Farewell to Husbandry ; or, the inriching of all sorts 

of barren and sterill grounds . . I. B. for Roger Jackson, 1620. 4to. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 339 

1618. Gervase Markham (continued). Another edition " newly revised " in 
1625. 

The Inrichment of the Weald of Kent . . G. P. for R. Jackson, 

1625. 4to. 

The Whole Art of Husbandrie, by C. Heresbach, translated by 

B. Googe, enlarged by Gervase Markham, 1631. 4to. 

See 1577, Heresbach-Googe. 
A Way to get Wealthe . . 1638-31-38. 4to. 

A compilation of some of Markham's agricultviral works, already issued separately, includes 
also Lawson's New Orchard. See 1618. 

The Countrymans Recreation, of the Art of Planting, Grafting, 

and Gardening . . London, 1640. 4to. 
Reprinted in 1653 and 1654. T. Bsirker's Art of Angling was printed at the end of this 
edition. 

1614. The Maske of Flowers'. . upon Twelfth Night, 1613 . . at the marriage 

of the Earle of Somerset . . N. O. for R. Wilson, 16 14. Small 4to. 
This poetical piece finds a place here as containing, in the Stage-directions, an admirable 
description of an Elizabethan garden. 

1615. Passe-Wood. a garden of Flowers, wher«in . . is contained a . . 

discription of al the flowers contained in these foure followinge 
bookes . . translated out of the Netherlandish [by E. W. or rather 
T. Wood ?]. S. de Roy for Crispin de Passe, Utrecht, 1615. 
2 parts, oblong 4to. 163 plates. 

1618. William Lawson. A new Orchard and Garden. Or the best way for 
planting . . With the Country Housewifes Garden . . B. Alsop for 
R. Jackson, 161 8. 2 parts in i vol. 4to. 

second edition. I. H. for Roger lackson, 1623. 4to. 

Now the third time corrected and much enlarged . . Whereunto 

is newly added the art of propagating plants (by Simon Har- 
ward). I. H. for F. Williams, 1626. 4 parts in i vol. small 4to. 

Reissued in 1638 in Markham's Way to get Wealth, and separately in 1683. London. 4to. 

1624f. Sir Henry Wotton. The Elements of Architecture . . London, John 
Bill, 1624. 4to. 

1625. Francis Bacon (Viscount St. Albans). The Essayes or Covnsels, 

Civill and Morall, of Francis Lo. Verulam Viscount St. Albans. 

Newly enlarged. 4to. 

This is apparently the first edition in which the Essay on Gardens was printed. 

Sylva sylvarum : or a Naturall Historic . . Published after the 

Author's death. By William Rawley . . London, 1627. 4to. 

The edition of 1676 is called tenth edition. 
Rawley was Bacon's chaplain and^secretary. 

1626. Adam Speed. Adam out of Eden . . London, 1626. 8vo. * 

Watt and AUibone give this date to the first edition, and treat the volume of 1659 as a 
reprint.ja Johnson calls him Adolphus Speed. 

Adam out of Eden, or an abstract of divers excellent Experiments 

touching the advancement of Husbandry. London, printed for 
Henry Brome, 1659. 8vo. 

The Reformed Husbandman. 165 1. 

This work is elsewhere attributed to Hartlib (see 1645). 

Simon Harward. The Art of Propagating plants — printed with the 
third edition of William_ Lawson's New Orchard and Garden. 
See 1618. 

22—2 



340 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1629. John Parkinson. Paradisi in sole, Paradisus terrestris, or a Garden 
of all sorts of pleasant flowers . . with a kitchen garden . . and an 
Orchard. H. Lownes and R. Young, 1629. Folio. Numerous 
woodcuts and title with portrait. 
Reissued in 1635, with an additional letterpress title bearing that date. 

the second impression, corrected and enlarged. 1656. Folio. 

Theatrum Botanicum. The Theater of Plants. Or an Vniversall 

and compleate Herball . . Tho. Cotes, 1640. Thick folio. With 
many hundred woodcuts. 

Thomas Johnson, m.d. Iter Plantarum investigationis ergo sus- 
ceptum . . in Agrum Cantianum . . 1629 Julii 13. Ericetum 
Hamstedianum sive plantarum ibi crescentium observatio . . 
[Londini, 1629.] 4to. 

Descriptio Itineris Plantarum investigationis ergo suscepti in 

agrum Cantianum anno Dom. 1632, et enumeratio plantarum 
in Ericeto Hampstediano ... T. Cotes, 1632. 8vo. 

Mercurius Botanicus ; sive Plantarum gratis suscepti Itineris 

anno MDCXXXIV Descriptio . . T. Cotes, 1634-41. 3 parts 8vo. 

The Herball . . 1633. Folio. See 1597, John Gerard. 

1639. Gabriel Plattes. A Discovery of Infinite Treasure, hidden since the 

Worlds beginning, whereunto all men . . are . . invited to be 

sharers with the discoverer, G. P. . . London, Printed for J. E. . 

1639. 4to. 
A Discovery of Subterranean Treasure, viz. of all manner of 

Mines and Mineralls . . I. Okes for J. Emery, 1639. 4to. 
[another edition] Whereunto is added a real experiment whereby 

every ignorant man . . may try what colour any berry, leaf or 

wood will give. . . 1679. 4to. 
other editions. 

The Profitable Intelligencer . . containing many secrets and ex- 
periments [with a view to improvement of Agriculture . .]. 1644. 
4to. 

1640. The Expert Gardener, or a Treatise containing necessary secret 

and ordinary knowledge of Grafting and Gardening, with divers 
proper new plots for the Garden. London, ? 1640. 4to. 

There is a book with the above title at St. David's College, Lampeter, and a very similar 
title is given by Johnson and Watt, who ascribe the work to C. de Sercy ; but it is not recorded 
elsewhere. 

I. H. AefdpoXoyta. Dodona's Grove or the Vocall Forrest, by I. H. 
Esquire. Printed by T. B. for H. Mosley . . . London. 1640, 
4to. 

(1645 ?) Isaac de Caus. Wilton Garden. [Etchings of the Flower-beds, 
Fountains, Arbours, etc., of the Earl of Pembroke's Gardens at 
Wilton.] About 1645. 4to. 
Reprinted by Bernard Quaritch, 1895. 

New and Rare Invention of Water-Works shewing the easiest 

waies to raise Water higher than the Spring . . Translated into 
English by lohn Leak. London, 1659. Several small woodcuts 
and xxvi. full-page plates. Folio. 

1645. Samuel Hartlib. Discourse of Husbandrie used in Brabant and 
Flanders. London, 1645. 4to. * 

Mentioned in Watt's Bibliotheca. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 341 

1645. Samuel Hartlib (continued). (Second edition). 1650. 4to. * 

Mentioned by Weston and Watt. 

The Third Edition, corrected and enlarged. London, Printed 

by WilUam Dugard, 1654. 4to. * 

Described by Hazlitt de visu. 

Samuel HartUb his Legacie ; or an Enlargement of the Discourse 

of Husbandry used in Brabant and Flanders . . with Appendix. 
165 1. 4to. 

Second edition in 1652, and third, printed by T. M. for R. Wodnothe, London, in 1655. 

An Essay for advancement of Husbandry-Learning ; or Propo- 
sitions for the errecting Colledge of Husbandry . . London, Printed 
by Henry Hills, 165 1. 4to. 

The Reformed Husbandman, or a brief treatise of the errors, 

defects . . of English husbandrie . . 

165 1. 4to. * 

This treatise is elsewhere attributed to Adam Speed. See 1626. It appears in Watt under 
both names. 

Cornucopia, a miscellaneum of lucriferous and most fructiferous 

Experiments, observations and discoveries. 1652. 

A Designe for Plentie, by an Vniversall planting of Frvit-Trees. 

1652. 4to. 

Also issued without a date, and in 1654. 

A Discoverie for Division or setting out of Land, as to the best 

forms. Richard Wodenothe, 1653. 4to. 

1648. Jacob Bobart. Hortus Medicus Oxoniensis . . Catalogus Plantarum 

Horti Medici Oxoniensis Latino-Anglicus et Anglico-Latinus. 

Oxon. 1648. Svo. 2 parts in i. 

The title to the English part is " An English Catalogue of the Trees and Plants in the 
Physicke Garden of the University of Oxford, with the Latin names added thereunto. Oxford, 
H. Hall, 1648." The book was reproduced by Simon Paulli at Copenhagen in 1653 in his 
" Viridaria varia regia et academica." 

1649. Walter Blith. The English Improver, or a New Survey of Hus- 

bandry . . London, J. Wright, 1649. 4to. 

The EngUsh Improver Improved, or the Svrvey of Hvsbandry 

Svrveyed . . The third Impression . . John Wright, 1652. 4to. 

(1650 ?) Peter Stent. Book of Flowers, Fruits, Beasts, Birds, and Flies . . 

4to. A set of engravings. * 

Ascribed by Hsizlitt conjecturally to 1660, but it must have preceded the following. Stent 
and Simpson were two engravers in London about or before the middle of the seventeenth 
century. 

1650. William Simpson. The Second Booke of flowers, fruicts, beastes, 

birds, and flies exactly drawne, etc. London, 1650. 4to. 
another issue. 1661. 4to. 

William How. Phytologia Britannica, natales exhibens indigenarum 
stirpium sponte emergentium. 
Londini, 1650. Svo. 

1652. Nicholas Culpepper. (Great student in Physick & Astrologie.) 
The English Physitian, or an Astrologo-Physical Discourse of the 
Vulgar Herbs of this Nation. London, Peter Cole, 1652. With 
engraved portrait. Foho. 



342 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1652. Nicholas Culpepper {continued). Another issue. " Printed for the 

benefit of the Commonwealth of England." With engraved 
portrait. 1652, without publisher's name. i2mo. 
This is the work popularly known as Culpepper's Herbal. An enlarged edition was printed 
in 1654 and again in 1656, and was the parent of all succeeding issues which have appeared 
frequently down to the nineteenth century. 

1653. A Book of Fruits and Flowers shewing the nature and use of them 

. . London, 1653. 

Ralph Austen. A Treatise of Fruit Trees shewing the manner of 
Grafting, Setting. . . Together with the Spiritual Use of an 
Orchard . . Oxford, 1653. 4to. 

second edition, with the addition of many new experiments. 

Oxford, 1657. 4to. 

(another edition, to which are added) Observations upon 

Sir Francis Bacon's Nat. Hist., also directions for planting wood. 
Oxford, 1665. 4to. 

Observations upon some part of Sir F. Bacon's Naturall History 

as it concerns fruit trees, fruits, and flowers. Oxford, 1658. 4to. 

This was the first edition of the " Observations," which were afterwards annexed as a 
second part to the 1665 edition of the " Treatise." 

John Beale. A Treatise on Fruit Trees shewing their manner of 
Grafting, Pruning, and Ordering, of Cyder and Perry, of Vine- 
yards in England, etc. Oxford, 1653. 4to. 

The Hereford Orchards ; a pattern for the whole of England. 

Written in an Epistolary Address to Samuel Hartlib, Esqre. By 
J. B — . Roger Daniel. London, 1657. i2mo. 

General Advertisements concerning Cyder, etc. London, 1677. 

4to. 

Nurseries, Orchards, Profitable Gardens, and Vineyards en- 
couraged (by Anthony Lawrence and John Beal). 1677. 4to. 

1656. William Coles. The Art of Simpling. An Introduction to the Know- 
ledge and gathering of Plants . . London, J. G. for Nath. Brook, 
1656. i2mo. 

another edition. 1657. 

Adam in Eden, or Nature's Paradise : the History of Plants, 

Fruits, Herbs, and Flowers. 1657. London. 4to. 

John Tradescant. Museum Tradescantianum, or a collection of 
Rarities preserved at South-Lambeth neear London. London, 
John Grismond, 1656. Small 8vo. 

1658. Sir Thomas Browne, m.d. Hydriotaphia, or a Discourse of Sepulchral 
Urns lately found in Norfolk ; together with the Garden of Cyrus, 
&c. London, 1658, 8vo. 

J. B. Porta. Natural Magick in twenty books .... the third book 
delivereth certain precepts of Husbandry and sheweth how to 
intermingle sundry kinds of plants and how to produce new kinds. 
1658. Folio. 

John Evelyn. The French Gardiner . . . Transplanted into English 
by Philocepos {i.e. J. E.). London, printed for John Crooke, 1658. 
Small Bvo. 

other editions, with the author's name in full. 1669 and 1691. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 

1658. John Evelyn {continued). Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-Trees , . • 

To which is annexed Pomona, or an Appendix concerning Fruit- 
Trees, &c. London, Martyn & Allestry, 1664. FoUo. 

Second edition, 1670, various later ones, the finest with notes by A. Hunter, York. 
2 vols. 4to. 1786, also 1801. 

The EngUsh Vineyard Vindicated. See 1666: John Rose. 

Kalendarium Hortense ; or the Gardener's Almanac, directing 

what he is to do monthly throughout the year. The second 
Edition . . London, 1666. 8vo. 
The first edition had been issued as portion of the Sylva in 1664. 

third edition " with many useful Additions." Martyn & Allestry, 

printers to the Royal Society. 1669. 
A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, relating to the culture and 

improvement of it for Vegetation . . London, 1676. 8vo. 

Of Gardens. 4 books. First written in Latin verse by Renatus 

Rapinus, now made English by J. E. London, 1673. 8vo. 

The Compleat Gard'ner, &c. ... by J. de la Quintinye . . made 

Enghsh by John Evelyn . . London, 1693. > Folio. 2 vols, in 
6 parts. Many later editions — the fifth dated 17 10. 

Evelyn's "Directions concerning Melons" forms part of Vol. II. See also 1699: London and 
Wise. 

Acetaria. A Discourse of Sallets. " by J. E. f.r.s. author of 

the Kalendarium." London, 1699 . . 8vo. 

1659. Robert Lovell. Ua/jL^oravoXoyia, or a Compleat Herbal. Oxford, 

1659. 8vo. 

The second edition, with many additions. Oxford, 1665. 8vo. 

Copies of both editions are in the Bodleian. 

Thomas Ducket. Proceedings concerning the improvement of all 
manner of land, &c. 1659. 

1660. Robert Sharrock. The History of the Propagation and Improve- 

ment of Vegetables, by the Concurrence of Art and Nature. 
Oxford, 1660. 8vo. 

second edition, much enlarged. Oxford, 1672. Svo. 

third edition. London, 1694. 8vo. 

John Ray. Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium. 

Cantab. 1660. 8vo. 

Appendix ad Catalogum . . Cantab. 1663. Svo. 

These were anonymously published. A second Appendix was printed in 1685. 

Catalogus Plantarum Angliae et insularum adjacentium. Lond. 

1670. Svo. 

Synopsis methodica Stirpium Britannicarum. 1690. Svo. * 

" editio secunda," enlarged. 1696. Svo. 

The Synopsis is an improved edition of the Catalogus of 1670. 

Catalogus Stirpium in exteris regionibus . . 1673. Svo. 

Historia Plantarum generalis. 1686-16S8-1704. 3 vols. Folio. 

Stirpium Europagarum extra Britanniam nascentium Sylloge. 

1694. Svo. 

Philosophical Letters . . 17 iS. Svo. 

Various other works of this excellent botanist are recorded in Watt's Bibliotheca. His 
name was originally spelled Wray, but he seems to have dropped the W himself. 

1661. Sir K. Digby. A Discourse concerning the vegetation of plants, 

spoken by Sir Kenelme Digby at Gresham College, on the 2^ . of 
January 1660. London, 1661. 24mo. 



344 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1664. John Forster. England's Happiness Increased, or a sure and easie 

remedy against all succeeding Dear Years. By a plantation of 
the roots called Potatoes. London, 1664. 4to. 

Le Gendre-Forster. The Manner of ordering Fruit Trees . . by the 
Sieur Le Gendre. London, 1664. * 

" Sieur Le Gendre " is a pseudonym for Robert Arnault d'Andilly. The translator was 
John Forster. 

Stephen Blake. The Complete Gardener's Practice. London, 1664. 
4to. 

Jonathan Goddard, m.d. Observations concerning the texture and 
similar parts of a Tree. 

The Fruit Tree's Secrets. 

These treatises were papers read to the Royal Society, and were only printed in Evelyn's 
Sylva_in 1664. 

1665. William Hughes. The Complete Vineyard, &c. London, 1665. 4to. 
The Flower Garden, enlarged . . . also how to draw a horizontal 

dial as a knot in a garden. London, 1671 and 1672. i2mo. 

The American Physician ; or a Treatise of the Roots, Plants, 

Trees, Shrubs, Fruit, Herbs, etc. growing in the English Planta- 
tions . . London, 1672. i2mo. 

John Rea. Flora, seu de Florum cultura ; or a complete Florilege. 
London, 1665. Folio. 

Flora, Ceres, et Pomona. 1676. Folio. 

An enlarged edition of the preceding. John Rea, gentleman, who was resident at Kinlet, 
near Bewdley, in Worcestershire, in 1676, is sometimes mistaken for John Ray the learned 
Divine and Naturalist, but the latter was nearly thirty years younger. 

Philosophical Transactions, published by the Royal Society, were begun 
in 1665. 
The following are among the contributors to the early volumes (before 1700) of papers on 
Botanical or Horticultural Subjects — John Beaumont, James Cunningham, John Evelyn, 
Nehemiah Grew, Hon. Charles Howard, Anthony van Lunwenhock, Martin Lister, Christopher 
Merret, James Petiver, Robert Plott, John Ray, Richard Richardson, Sir Hans Sloane, John 
Temple, Ezekiel Yonge. 

1668. John Rose. The English Vineyard Vindicated . . London, 1666. 

1 2mo. * 

With a preface by Philocepos, i.e., John Evelyn. It was reissued in 1669, 1675, and 1691 as 
an appendix to Evelyn's French Gardiner, and alone in 1672. 

1667. Abraham Cowley. The Garden (a Poem). 

Printed at the end of Poems by Jeremiah Wells, which were published in 1667, in 8vo. 

1669. Richard Richardson. De cultu Hortorum, Carmen. London, 1669. 

4to. * 

This title is taken from Johnson's list.f Watt gives the date as 1699. 
Francis Dudley (fourth Lord North). Observations and Advices 

oeconomical. 1669. 8vo. 
S. B. [Samuel Blagrave, or as some say, Billingsly.] " The Epitome 
of Husbandry (a complete plagiary, the first 181 pages being 
copied from Fitz-Herbert, and the rest from Mascall, &c.)." 
1669. * 

This intitulation and note are taken from Johnson. 
J. W., Gent. [John Worlidge]. Systema Agriculturse, The Mystery of 
Husbandry discovered . . To which is added Kalendarium Rusti- 
cum . . London, 1669. Folio. 
Second edition in 1675, others in 1681 and 1677, the fourth, " with large Additions," in 
1687. 

t See under 1839. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 345 

1669. J. W., Gent. [John Worlidge] (continued). Vinetum Britannicum, 

or a Treatise of Cider . . London, 1 676. 8vo. 
Other editions in 1678 and 1691. 

Systema Horticulturae, or the Art of Gardening ... in three books 

illustrated ^vith sculptures representing the forms of Gardens 
according to the newest models. London, 1677. 8vo. Another 
edition, 1682. 

1670. Iliffe. The Compleat Vineyard. 1670. * 

This title is given by Johnson. It may be no more than an issue of William Hughes' book. 
See 1665. 

Leonard Meager. The English Gardener ; or a Sure Guide to Young 

Planters and Gardeners. London, 1670. 4to. 
Several later editions. The twelfth, 1721. 
The Mystery of Husbandry . . to which is added The Country- 
man's Almanack. 1697. i2mo. 

The New Art of Gardening ; with the Gardener's Almanack, 

1697. i2mo. 

Second edition, 1732. 

Andrew Mollet. The Garden of pleasure . containing several 

draughts of Gardens both in embroyder'd ground ... as likewise 

in Wildernesses . . . with their cuts in copper . . . dedicated to the 

King . . . London, T. M. for John Martyn. 1670. Folio. 

I have only seen one copy of this book. It is in the possession of Lord Newton at Lyme 
Park. It contains 36 plates. Mollet had given this title, translated into French, to a work 
he published in Stockholm in 1651, of which there is a copy in the British Museum. 

John Smith (Captain). England's Improvement Reviv'd. London, 
I 670. 4to. 

England's Improvement Reviv'd in a Treatise of all Manner of 

Husbandry. London, 1673. 4to. 

1672. Robert Morison. Plantarum UmbelUferarum Distributio. Oxon, 

1672. Folio. 
Plantarum Historia Universalis Oxoniensis. Pars II. Oxon. 

1680. 
Ejusdem Pars III., explevit Jac. Bobartius. Oxon. 1699. Folio. 

This general work on plants incorporates the earlier " Plantarum UmbelUferarum Dis- 
tributio," but was itself never completed. Only Parts II. and III. were written. 

Icones et descriptiones rariorum Plantarum Siciliae, Melitae, 

Galliae et Italiae. Oxon. 1674. 4to. 

This is a translation of Paolo Poccone's Manifestum Botanicum. 

Francis Drope. A Short and sure Guide in the practice of raising and 
ordering Fruit Trees. Oxford, 1672. 8vo. 

Nehemiah Grew. The Anatomy of Vegetables begun. London, 
1672. 8vo. 

The Anatomy of Plants, with an idea of the Philosophical History 

of Plants. Lectures read before the Royal Society. With 83 
plates. London, 1682. Folio. 

1673. Rapinus-Evelyn. See 1658 : Evelyn; also Gardiner, 171 8. 

1675. Charles Cotton. The Planter's Manual, being instructions for the 
raising, planting, and cultivating all sorts of fruit trees . . London, 
1675. 8vo. 



346 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1676. Moses Cook. The Manner of Raising, Ordering, and Improving 

Forrest-Trees, also How to plant, make and keep Woods, Walks, 
Avenues, Lawns, Hedges . . . London, 1676. 4to. 

Second edition "very much corrected." London, 1717. 8vo. 

Third edition, 1724. 

1677. Elsholt-Sherley. Curious Distillatory, or the Art of Distilling 

Coloured Spirits, Liquors, Oyls, &c. from Vegetables, by J. S. 
Elsholt [or John Sigismond Elsholtz], and Englished by Thomas 
Sherley. London, 1677. 8vo. 

1681. T. Langford. Plain and Full Instructions to raise all sorts of Fruit 

Trees that prosper in England. London, 168 1. 8vo. 

The Practical Planter of Fruit Trees. London, 1681. 8vo. * 

second edition, with two chapters of Greens and Greenhouses. 

1696. 8vo. * 

The Practical Planter is mentioned by Watt as a distinct work from the Plain and Full 
Instructions. 

1682. Samuel Gilbert. The Florists Vade-Mecum .. London, 1682. i2mo. 

A second edition appeared in 1683, and a third enlarged in 1702. And besides these I have 
seen copies dated 1690 (B. M.) and 1693 (University Library, Cambridge). 

John Houghton. A Collection of Letters for the improvement of 
Husbandry and Trade. London, 1682. 4to. 
Issued in numbers in 1681-83. 

1683. CoMMELiN — G. V. N. The Belgick or Netherlandish Hesperides, that 

is, the management, ordering and use of the Lemon and Orange 
Trees, made English by G. V. N. (from the Dutch of Commelin). 
1683. 8vo. 

John Reid. The Scots' Gardener. Edinburgh, 1683. 4to. 

1684. Richard Haines. Aphorisms upon the new way of improving Cyder, 

or making Cyder-Royal . . raising and planting of Apple-trees, 
&c. London, 1684. Folio. 

1685. [William Ellis] The Complete Planter & Ciderist, or choice Col- 

lections and Observations for the propagating all manner of 
Fruit-Trees . . By a Lover of Planting. London, 1685. 8vo. 
The author's name does not appear in the book. 

Sir William Temple. Upon the Garden of Epicurus, or of Gardening 

in the year 1685. 

A treatise on Gardening, especially relating to the Gardens at Sheen, written in 1685, 
published in the Miscellaneous Works of Temple, in 1705 and 1720 ; perhaps also in the 
edition which had appeared in 1689. 

The Art of Pruning Fruit-Trees with an explanation of some Words 
which Gardiners make use of . . . and a Tract of the use of the Fruit 
of Trees for preserving us in Health .... Translated from the 
French original set forth the last year by a Physician of Rochelle. 
London, Printed for Tho. Basset . 1685. 8vo. 

1693. De la Quintinye — Evelyn. See 1658 : Evelyn. 

1694f. Sir Dudley Cullum. A new invented Stove, for preserving Plants in 
the Green House in Winter. 4to. 
Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of 1694. 

John Pechey. The Compleat Herbal of Physical Plants .... London, 
1 694. 8vo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 347 

1699. London and Wise. The Compleat Gard'ner [of J. de la Quintinye. 

translated by John Evelyn] . . now compendiously abridged . . 

with very considerable improvements. By George London and 

Henry Wise. London, 1699. 8vo. 
For the unabridged translation, see 1658 : John Evelyn. 
Other editions in 1701, 1704 and 1710. 

The Retir'd Gardener, from the French of Louis Liger. London, 

1706. 2 vols. 8vo. 

The Solitary or Carthusian Gardener, from the French of Fran9ois 

le Gentil. London, 1706. 2 vols. 8vo, 

The same work, vrith a difierent title. Vol. I. is from the French of Louis Liger. Vol. IL 
from Le Gentil. 

N. F. D. Fruit Walls improved by inclining them to the Horizon. 
By a member of the Royal Society. N. F. D. [? = N. F, Duilher]. 
1699. 4to. 

1700. Timothy Nourse. Campania Fehx, or Discourses of the benefits and 

improvements of Husbandry. London, 1700. 8vo. 
Adam Armed : or an Essay endeavouring to prove the advantages . . 
the kingdom may receive ... by means of a well ordered and duly 
rectified Charter for incorporating and regulating the Professor 
of the Art of Gardening ; humbly offered and presented by the 
Master and Company of the same. London. 1700. 
A collection of Tracts relating to Trade. B. M. 712. m. i, 10. 

1702. T. Snow. Apopiroscopy, or experiments and observations on several 

Arts (Building, Agriculture, Gardening, &c.). London, 1702. 
8vo. 

1703. Le Blond — James. The Theory and Practice of Gardening, trans- 

lated from the French of A. Le Blond, by John James. London, 
1703. 8vo. 

other editions. London, 17 12 and 1728. 4to. 

Van Oosten — . The Dutch Gardener, or the Compleat Florist . . 
written in Dutch by Henry Van Oosten, the Leyden Gardener. 
And made English. London, Printed for D. Midwinter and T. 
Leigh .... 1703. Small 8vo. 

another edition, 17 11. 

1704. Smith. The Husbandman's Magazine. 1704. (Only mentioned by 

Johnson.) * 

Dictionarium Rusticum et Urbanicum. A Dictionary of all sorts of 
County Affairs, trading, &c. London, 1704. 8vo. Anonymous. 

Third edition " revised, corrected and improved with the addition 

of above 300 articles." London, 1726. 8vo. 

1706. Richard Bradley. Paintings of his succulent plants, with written 
accounts of them. 1706. 

A treatise on Succulent Plants. London, 17 10. 

Historia Plantarum succulentarum. London, 1716-27. 4to. 

New Improvements of planting and gardening, philosophical and 

practical. London, 17 17. 8vo. 
Several later editions, the fourth 1724, fifth 1726, the sixth 1731, and seventh 1739. 

The Gentleman and Gardener's Kalendar, London, 1718. 8vo. 



348 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1706. Richard Bradley {continued). The third edition " The Country 

Gentleman and Farmer's Monthly Director," with "large addi- 
tions and improvements." London, 1727. 

A Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature. London, 1721. 

4to. 

A Philosophical Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening, being a 

method of cultivating all sorts of Trees, shrubs, and flowers, by 
G. A. Agricola, M.D., and Doctor of Philosophy at Ratisbonne ; 
translated from the high Dutch and adorned with cuts by R. 
Bradley. London, 1721. 4to. 

The Monthly Register of Experiments and Observations in Hus- 
bandry and Gardening. (2 Parts, April and May, 1722, are in 
the Sturtevant Library, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.A., and I have not seen 
any others.) (It contains a list of plants by T. Fairchild.) 

A General Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening, containing 

such observations and Experiments as are useful for the improve- 
ment of Land .... as may help the ingenious in their Studies and 
promote universal learning. London, T. Woodward, 1724. 
3 vols. 8vo. 

A Survey of Ancient Husbandry and Gardening. London, 1725. 

8vo. 

A general Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening. Formerly 

published monthly, now methodized and digested. London 
1726. 2 vols. 8vo. 

A complete Body of Husbandry. London, 1727. 8vo. 

Dictionarium Botanicum, or a Botanical Dictionary for the use 

of the Curious in Husbandry and Gardening. " A work never 
before attempted." London, 1728. 2 vols. 8vo. 

The Riches of a Hop Garden explained. London, 1729. 8vo. 

- A Dictionary of Plants, their description and use. London, 1747. 

2 vols. 8vo. 

Bradley was also the author of several less important treatises on Gardening and 
Agriculture. 

1707. John Mortimer. Whole Art of Husbandry, and Countryman's 

Kalendar. London, 1707. 8vo. 

Part II., containing additions proper for the Husbandman and 

Gardener. London, 171 2. 8vo. 

Later editions, ed. by his grandson Thomas, 1 7 16- 172 1 and 

1761. 

William Fleetwood, Bishop of St. Asaph and Ely. Curiosities of 

Nature and Art in Husbandry and Gardening. London, 1707. 

8vo. (Mentioned by Johnson.) * 

Charles Evelyn. Ladies' Recreation ; or the Pleasure and Profit of 

Gardening improved. London, 1707. 8vo. 

Several later editions, with slightly varying titles. That of 1719 is called Lady's Recreation 
or the Art of Gardening farther Improved. 

1710. William Salmon, m.d. The English Herbal, or History of Plants. 
London, 17 10, Folio. 

1712. Joseph Addison. An Essay on the Pleasures of the Garden. (The 
Spectator, No. 477.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 349 

1712. Pierre Pomet. A Complete History of Drugs, written in French by 

Monsieur Pomet ... to which is added what is farther observable 
on the same subject from Messrs. Lemery and Tournefort . . . 
done into EngUsh from the originals. London, 17 12. 

another edition, 1725, and the fourth carefully corrected with large 

additions. London, 1748. 4to. 

1713. Alexander Pope. Essay on Verdant Sculpture. (TheGuardian.'tJo. 17$.) 

James Petiver. A Catalogue of Mr. Ray's English Herbal, 1713-15. 
Folio. 

Hortus Peruvianus Medicinalis, or the South-Sea Herbal. Con- 
taining the names ... of diners medicinal plants lately discovered 
by P6re L. Feuillee . . . London, 171 5. 

Historia naturalem, with 152 copper plates. London, 1764. 

2 vols. 
Several papers in the Phil. Trans, relating to gardens in London, &c. 

1714. John Lawrence. The Clergyman's Recreation, shewing the pleasure 

and profit of the Art of Gardening. London, 17 14. 8vo. 
Later editions, 1715, 1716 ; the fifth, 1717, and sixth, 1726. 

The Gentleman's Recreation, &c. London, 1716. Svo. 

The Lady's Recreation ; or the Art of Gardening improved . . . 

To which are added Observations concerning variegated greens 
by J. L. 1 7 18. Svo. 

Gardening Improved (containing the three previous works). 

London, 17 18. Svo. 

The Fruit Garden Kalendar. London, 17 18. Svo. 

Second edition, 1736. 

A new System of Agriculture, being a complete book of Hus- 
bandry and Gardening, &c. London, 1726. Folio. 

1715. G.Clarke. The Landed Man's Assistant. 171 5. i2mo. (Mentioned 

by Johnson.) * 

Stephen Switzer. The Nobleman, Gentleman and Gardener's 
Recreation, &c. London, 171 5. Svo. 

Ichnographia Rustica. London, 17 18. 3 vols. Svo. 

This is an enlargement of the preceding work, second edition, 1741. 
The Practical Fruit Gardener, &c. London, 1724. Svo. 

The Practical Kitchen Gardiner, or a New and Entire System of 

Directions, For his employment in the Melonry, Kitchen-garden 
and Potagery, . . . being chiefly observations of a Person train'd 
up in the Neat-Houses or Kitchen Gardens about London. . . . 
The whole methodiz'd and Improved by Stephen Switzer. Lon- 
don, 1727. Svo. 

Second edition, revised by Laurence and Bradley. London, 

173 1. Svo. 

A Compendious Method for raising of Italian Brocoli . . and other 

Foreign Kitchen Vegetables, &c. London, 1729. Svo. 

I have seen copies of this work dated 1729, called " third and revised edition," also " fourth 
edition," but I have never seen any of earlier date with this exact title. Watt (and Johnson) 
mention a work called " A Compendious Method for raising Kitchen Vegetables," London, 
1729, 8vo., which I am unable to trace, and conclude these must all be editions with variations 
of the " Practical Kitchen Gardiner " of 1727- 



350 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1715. Stephen Switzer (continued). A Dissertation on the true Cythisus 

of the Ancients, &c. London, 1731. 8vo. 
Second edition, 1735. 

C. J. Wolfe and James Gandon. Vitruvius Britannicus, or British 
Architect, containing plans, &c. of buildings and Gardens, pubhc 
and private, in Great Britain ; 200 copper-plates. London, 171 5. 

1716. Rev. Henry Stevenson. The Young Gardener's Director. London, 

printed for Anthony Barker. 17 16. i2mo. 

The Gentleman Gardener instructed. London, 17 16. lamo. 

Mentioned by Johnson with this title, and he says the sixth edition is dated 1769. What 
I believe to be the second edition is entitled " The Gentleman's Gard'ner's Director," second 
edition, London, 1744. 8vo. The seventh edition I have seen is dated 1766. 

1717. Joseph Carpenter. The Retir'd Gardener. London, 17 17. 8vo. 

Samuel Collins. Paradise Retrieved, or the Method of managing and 
improving Fruit Trees, with a Treatise on Melons and Cucumbers ; 
12 plates. London, 17 17. 8vo. 

George Andrew Agricola. The Artificial Gardener. London, 1717. 
The Experimental Husbandman and Gardener, translated from the 

original with remarks and adorned with cuts. 2nd edition. 

London, 1726. 4to. [Probably second edition of the above.] 

Philosophical Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening. Translated 

by Bradley. London, 1721 [see Bradley, 1706]. 

On Planting. Edin., 1777. 

These works, 1717, 1721, 1777, described by Watt as translated from the German. He is 
correct as regards the two first, but the third work is evidently the following, and Agricola is 
the pseudonym of another writer, James Anderson (see 1777). 

" Miscellaneous observations on planting and training Timber Trees particuleirly calcu- 
lated for the climate of Scotland. In a series of letters by Agricola. Edinburgh. Printed 
for Charles Elliott, Edinbiirgh ; and Thomas CadeU, London, 1777." 

" Advertisement the following letters were first published in the Edinburgh Weekly 
Amusement." 

Giles Jacob. The Country Gentleman's Vade-Mecum. 1717. i2mo. 

1718. Rev. James Gardiner. Rapin of Gardens : a Latin Poem in 4 books, 

Englished by J. G. London, 17 18. 

See also Evelyn, 1658. 

1719. Tournefort — . The Compleat Herbal : or the Botanical Institutions 

of Mr. Tournefort .... carefully translated from the original 
Latin, with large Additions from Ray, Gerarde, Parkinson, and 
others, .... with a short Account of the Life and Writing of the 
Author. London, 1719. 4to., with plates. 

1720. Patrick Blair, m.d. Botanick Essays. London, 1720. 8vo. 

Pharmaco-Botanologia, or an alphabetical and classical Disser- 
tation on all the British Indigenous and Garden Plants of the New 
London Dispensatory. London, 1723-28. 4to. 

1722. Thomas Fairchild. The City Gardener, &c. London, 1722. 8vo. 

The diflEerent and sometimes contrary motion of the sap in plants. 

Phil. Trans. 1724. 

Catalogus Plantarum. See Society of Gardeners, 1730. 

Joseph Miller. Botanicum Officinale, or A Compendious Herbal 
(dedicated to Sir Hans Sloane). London, 1722. Svo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 35i 

1724. Philip Miller. The Gardener's and Florist's Dictionary. London, 

1724. 

Catalogus Plantarum Officinalium quae in Horto Botanico Chel- 

seiano atiextur. London, 1730. 

The Gardener's Dictionary. London, 1731-39. FoUo. 

This was many times republished, abridged, translated, and enlarged. The second edition 
1733. In the seventh, 1759, Miller adopted the Linnean system of classification. 

The Gardener's Kalendar. London, 1732. 8vo. 

Several later editions, the thirteenth dated 1782. 

The Method of Cultivating Madder, &c. London, 1758. 

Figures of the most beautiful useful and uncommon Plants de- 
scribed in the Gardener's Dictionary, exhibited on three hundred 
copper-plates. London, 1760. Another edition, 1771. 

The Elements of Agiiculture, translated from Duhamel du 

Monceau. 1764. 2 vols. 8vo. 
A Discourse on the IrritabiUty of some Flowers, translated from the 

Italian, London. 8vo. Without name of author or date. 

1726. Batty Langley. Practical Geometry applied to the Arts of Building, 

Surveying, -Gardening, &c. London, 1726. Folio. 

A Sure Method of improving Estates by plantations of Oak, 

Elm, Ash, Beech, &c. London, 1728. 4to. * 

New Principles of Gardening, or the laying-out and planting 

Parterres. London, 1728. 4to. 

Pomona, or the Fruit Garden illustrated, &c. London, 1729. 

Folio. 

The Landed Gentleman's Useful Companion (reprint of " A Sure 

Method," &c.). London, 1741. 

Benjamin Townsend. The Complete Seedsman. Shewing the best 
and easiest method for raising and cultivating every Sort of Seed, 
&c. 1726. 8vo. 

The Gentleman Farmer, or certain observations on the Husbandry of 
Flanders, compared wth that of England. 1726. i2mo. Anony- 
mous. (Mentioned by Johnson.) * 

1727. S. J. The Vineyard ; a Treatise shewing the nature and method of 

planting, manuring, cultivating, and dressing Vines in foreign 
parts, &c. 1727. (Mentioned by Johnson.) * 

Robert Furber. Catologue of English and Foreign trees. London, 
1727. 8vo. (Mentioned by Watt.) * 

Fruits for every month in the year. 12 plates. 1732. Svo. * 

An Introduction to Gardening, &c. London, 1733. 8vo. 

1728. Robert Castel. The Villas of the Ancients, " illustrated with re- 

marks and cuts. " London, 1728. Folio. * 

1729. John Cowell. A true Account of the Aloe Americana, or Africana 

now in blossom . . . also two other exotic plants call'd the Cereus 
or Torch-thistle. London, 1729. Svo. 

The Curious and Profitable Gardener. London, 1730. Svo. 

The Curious Fruit and Flower Gardener. Second Edition. 

London, 1732. Svo. 

Same work as above with different title-page. 



352 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1729. Peter Collinson. Article in the " Phil. Trans." 1729. 

1730. A Society of Gardeners. Catalogus Plantarum. A Catalogue of 

trees, shrubs . . in the gardens near London. Part I. (rest never 

published). London, 1730. Folio. 

Thomas Fairchild's name appears first on the list of the twenty gardeners who signed the 
Preface, so this work is sometimes catalogued under his name, or under that of Philip Miller, 
whose name is also on the list. 

Benjamin Whitmil (joint author of the Catalogus Plantarum) Kalen- 
darium Universale or the Gardener's Universal Calendar. 6th 
edition adopted to the new style. London, 1757. i2mo. (I 
have not discovered the date of the first edition). 

1781. Mark Catesby. Natural History of California, Florida, &c., &c. 
London, 1731. Imp. folio. 

Hortus Europae Americanus, or a Collection of 8$ Curious Trees 

and Shrubs, &c. London, 1767. 4to. 

1732. Hortus Elthamensis sen plantarum rariorum. In the garden of Jacob 
Sherard. London, 1732. 2 vols, folio. Plates drawn by W. 
Frater, descriptions by J. J. Dillenius. 

An Essay concerning the best methods of pruning Fruit Trees, &c. 
London, 1732. 8vo. Anonymous. * 

The nature and method of planting, manuring, and dieting a Vineyard. 
London, 1732. Bvo. Anonymous. * 

The great Improvement of Commons that are enclosed for the ad- 
vantage of Lords of the Manor, the Poor, and the Public, with 
methods of enriching all soils, and raising timber. To ripen fruit 
at all times of the year ; an improvement in raising Mushrooms, 
Cucumbers, &c. 1732. Anonymous. * 

These three anonymous works are mentioned by Johnson. 

William Harper. A Sermon of Gardening, preached at Malpas, Co. 
'^^ of Chester, at a Meeting of Gardeners and Florists, April iSth, 

1732. London, 1732. 4to. 

The Flower Garden Displayed. London, 1732. 4to. 

A Second Edition, to which is added " A Flower Garden for 

Gentlemen and Ladies, being the Art of raising Flowers . . . 
also salleting, cucumbers, &c. as it is now practised by Sir Thomas 
More. Above 400 curious representations of the most beautiful 
flowers, &c. from the designs of Mr. Furber and others, coloured 
to the Life. London, 1734. 4to. 

William Ellis. Complete Modern Husbandry, containing the Prac- 
tice of Farming, etc. Second Edition. London, 1732. 8vo. 

The Practical Farmer or Hertfordshire Husbandman. London, 

1732. 

The Timber Tree improved, or the best practical methods of im- 
proving dififerent lands with proper timber. London, 1738. 
Ellis was the author of several other Agricultural Treatises. 

1736. Pluche-Humphrys. Nature Displayed, translated from the French 

of N. A. Pluche, by George Humphrys. London, 1736. 8vo. 

1737. Elizabeth Blackwell. A curious Herbal containing 500 cuts of the 

most useful plants which are now used in the practice of Physick. 
London. Vol. I. 1737. Vol. II. 1739- 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 353 

1738. Public Gardens. Collection of notes about Ranelagh, Cuper's 

Garden, &c. (Guildhall Library.) 1738-46. 

Stephen Hales. Statical Essays ... an account of some statical 
experiments on sap in vegetables. Third edition with amend- 
ments. 2 vols. Vol. I. 1738, and Vol. II. 1740. 

1739. Samuel Trowell. A New Treatise of Husbandry, Gardening and other 

curious matters relating to country affairs. London, 1739. 8vo. 

The Farmer's Instructor or Husbandman, and Gardener's useful 

and necessary Companion. Ed. by William Ellis. 1747. (Men- 
tioned by Johnson.) 

An Essay upon Harmony, as it relates chiefly to situation and building. 
London, 1739. 8vo. Anonymous. * 

1740. Christopher Gray. A Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs ... for sale. 

1740. * 

1744. Adam's Luxury and Eve's Cookery, or the Kitchen Garden displayed. 

London, 1744. 8vo. * 

Curious Experiments in Gardening, &c. 1744. i2mo. * 

These four works are mentioned by Johnson. 
John Wilson. Synopsis of British Plants, in Ray's Method, with a 

Botanical Dictionary. Newcastle, 1744. 

1745. J. Serle. a Plan of Mr. Pope's Garden and Grotto, &c., with Plan 

and Perspective View of the Grotto all taken by J. Serle his 
gardener. 1745. 

1746. David Stephenson, m.a. The Gentleman's Gardener's Director of 

Plants, Flowers, and Trees, with a Garden Kalendar. London, 
1746. 8vo. * 

Sixth edition. " New and Complete Gardener's Kalendar," or the 
Gentleman and Gardener instructed in Sowing, Planting . . . 
Dublin, 1765. 

Stow (description of). Stowe Gardens in Buckinghamshire Belong- 
ing to the Rt. Honble. Lord Viscount Cobham. Laid out by 
Bridgman . . . Drawn on the spot by Mons. Rigaud, engraved by 
him and Bernard Baron. London, 1746, folio, max. The de- 
scription of plates in English and French. 

The Beauties of Stowe. London, 1746. 

A description of the Gardens of Lord Viscount Cobham at Stowe. 
Northampton, 1747. 

A dialogue upon the Gardens of Lord Viscount Cobham at Stowe. 
London, 1748. 8vo. 

The Gardens of Lord Viscount Cobham at Stowe. London, 175 1. 

George Bickham. The Beauties of Stowe. 1753. 8vo. 
A description of the House and Gardens of the Marquis of Buckingham 
at Stowe. Buckingham, 1797. 

1747. The Complete Florist ; 100 engravings. London, 1747. 8vo. Anony- 

mous. 

1748. Sir William Watson. Papers pubhshed in the Philosophical Trans- 

actions. Accounts of the remains of John Tradescant's Botanic 
Garden at Lambeth. 1750. Account of the Bishop of London's 
Garden at Fulham. 175 1. And several others on similar 
subjects. 

23 



354 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1748. Sir William Watson {continued). A Letter to Andrew Ducarel. 
London, 1774. 4to. 

1750. D. C. J. Trew. Plantae selectae qvarvm .... natvralia Londini in 
Hortis Cvriosorvum nvtrita. 1750-73. Imp. folio. 3 portraits 
and 100 coloured plates. 

William John Halfpenny. Rural Architecture in the Chinese 
taste, being designs for the decoration of gardens, &c. 4 parts, 
with 60 plates. London, 1750. 8vo. 

another edition 1755. 

1752. Attiret-Beaumont. A Particular Account of the Emperor of China's 

Gardens near Pekin, by F. Attiret (a French missionary). Trans- 
lated by Sir Harry Beaumont. London, 1752. 
Said by Johnson to be by Joseph Spence, D.D., and dated 1757. 

James Newton. Compleat Herbal. London, 1752. 8vo. 

a new edition, 1805. 

1753. W. Webb. A Catalogue of Seeds and Roots under their proper heads. 

1753- 
Francis Coventry. Essay in "The World" of April 12th, 1753 
(No. XV.), entitled, " Strictures on the absurd novelties intro- 
duced in Gardening," and a humorous description of Squire 
Mushroom's Villa. 1753. * 

Bartholomew Rocque. A Treatise on the Hyacinth, &c. London, 
1753- 

A Practical Treatise on cultivating Lucerne-Grass, &c. London, 

1775- 

1754. James Justice. The Scot's Gardener's Director. Edinburgh, 1754. 

The British Gardener's Calendar, etc. Edinburgh, 1759. 

The Scot's Gardener's Director. By a Gentleman, one of the 

-^ members of the Royal Society [Dedication is signed by Ja. Justice]. 

Second edition. Edinburgh, 1759. 8vo. 

The British Gardener's Director. Edinburgh, 1764. 

The Useful Herbal. Anonymous. London, 1754. 8vo. 

Edward Knight. " Dover's Legacy, The British Legacy or Fountain 

of Knowledge," containing " The Gardener's Legacy," by Edward 

Knight. London, 1754. 8vo. 

1755. John Dalton, d.d. Some thoughts on Building and planting, ad- 

dressed to Sir James Lowther, Bart. London, 1755. 4to. 

1756. On the Heat and Cold of Hot-houses. Anonymous. London, 1756. 

8vo. * 

Timothy Sheldrake (the elder). Gardener's Best Companion in a 
Greenhouse. London [c. 1756]. Foho. 

An Herbal of Medicinal Plants, etc. London [c. 1759]. 

John Hill, m.d. (Sir J. H.). The British Herbal, an History of 
plants . . cultivated for use or raised for Beauty. London, 1756. 
Folio. 

The Sleep of Plants and Cause of Motion in the Sensitive Plant. 

A letter to C. Linnaeus. 1757. 

Exotic Botany. . . . Explaining the Sexual System. 1759. Roy. 

folio, plates. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 355 

1756. John Hill, m.d. (Sir J. H.) (continued). The Vegetable System. 1759. 

Roy. folio. 

The Construction of Timber from its early growth, explained by 

the Microscope. 1777. FoUo. 

Gardener. A Description of the figures of plants adapted to the 
Gardener's Dictionary. London, 1756. Folio. 

1757. Hale. Eden, or a Complete Body of Gardening . . . compiled by Sir 

John Hill from the papers left by Hale. London, 1757. Folio. 
Another edition, 1812. 

Thomas Hitt. A Treatise of Fruit Trees. London, 1757. 8vo. 
(2nd ed.). * 

A Treatise of Husbandry on the improvement of dry and barren 

lands. London, 1760. 8vo. 

Edward Lisle. Observations on Husbandry. 1757. 4to. 

Edited by his son, T. Lisle. 
Robert Maxwell. The practical Husbandman. 1757. 

William Mason (the Poet). An heroic Epistle to Sir W. Chambers. 
London, 1757. 4to. 

An heroic Postscript. First complete edition of all the four 

books. 1758. 

The English Garden, a Poem, in 4 books. 8vo. 1772. 

another edition, York, 1781. 4to. Printed by A. Warde. 

This issue has a general title-page, and also separate titles to each book, on which the first 
book is called " third edition London 1778 ": the second book, " second edition York 1777." 
The third book is dated London 1779, and the fourth book York 1781, containing " a genwal 
Postscript." 

An edition with Commentary and Notes, by W. Burgh. 1785. 

James Thompson. The distinguishing properties of a fine Auricula. 

Newcastle, 1757. 8vo. 

The Dutch Florist. Newcastle, 1758. lamo. 

Francis Home. Principles of Agriculture and Vegetation. Edin- 
burgh, 1757. 8vo. 

1758. Thomas Barnes. New method of Propagating Fruit Trees and Shrubs, 

confirmed by repeated and successful experience. London, 1758. 
8vo. * 

Later editions, 1759 and 1763. 

Rev. William Hanbury. An Essay on Planting, and a scheme for 
making it conducive to the glory of God. Oxford, 1758. " An 
8vo. pamphlet." * 

A complete body of planting and gardening. London, 1 770-1. 

FoUo. 2 vols. Engraved plates. 

1759. Richard North. A Treatise on Grasses and the Norfolk Willow. 

London, 1759. 8vo. 

The Gardener's Catalogue of Hardy Trees, Shrubs, Flowers, 

Seeds, &c. 1759. 8vo. (Mentioned by Johnson.) * 

John Mills. Practical Treatise on Husbandry, translated from the 
French of Duhamel de Monceau. 1759. 4to. With plates. 

A new and complete System of Practical Husbandry. 1762. 

5 vols. 8vo. 

23—2 



356 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1759. John Mills (continued). The Natural and Chemical Elements of 

Agriculture, from the German of Gyllenborg. 1770. i2mo. 

Essays on Agriculture. 1772. 8vo. 

Benjamin Stillingfleet. Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Natural 
History. Translated from the Latin of various Swedish authors. 
London, 1759. 8vo. 

2nd edition with the addition of the Calendar of Flora, from the 

Swedish of Berger. London, 1762. 8vo. 

A Discourse concerning the irritability of some Flowers, from the 

Italian [1767]. 8vo. 

1760. Samuel Pullein. Observations towards a method of preserving the 

seeds of Plants in a state of Vegetation during long voyages. 
London, 1760. 8vo. * 

James Lee. An Introduction to Botany, containing an explication 
of the Theory of that Science, &c. London, 1760. 8vo. 

Catalogue of Plants and Seeds sold by Kennedy and Lee, at the 

Vineyard, Hammersmith. 1774. 8vo. * 

The London Gardener. Anonymous. London, 1760. 8vo. (Men- 
tioned by Johnson.) * 

1762. T. Lightoler. The Gentleman and Farmer's Architecture ; being 

Plans for Parsonage and Farm Houses, with Pineries, Greenhouses, 
&c. With Plates. London, 1762. Folio. 
Johnson mentions an edition of 1766. 

1763. George Ritso. Kew Gardens : a Poem. London, 1763. * 
James Wheeler. The Botanists' and Gardeners' New Dictionary, 

containing names, classes, &c. . . according to the System of 
Linnaeus. London, 1763. 8vo. 

An Essay on the Theory of Agriculture, &c. London, 1763. 

i2mo. * 

' Sir William Chambers. Plans, Elevations, Sections and Perspective 
Views of the Gardens and Buildings at Kew, seat of the Princess 
Dowager of Wales . . with 43 plates. London, 1763. Roy. fol. 

A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening. London, 1772. 4to. 

The second, being the only other edition, 1773. 
Charles Knight (forty years principal Gardener to two Noble 
Families). The Gardener's Legacy. Printed in The Family 
Treasury compiled by P. Montague. Dublin, 1763. i2mo. 

Thomas Martyn, f.r.s. ^Plantse Cantabrigienses, or a Catalogue of Plants 
which grow wild in the County of Cambridge. London, 1763. 8vo. 

A Short Account of the Donation to the Botanic Garden, by Dr. 

Walker. London, 1763. 4to. 

Catalogus Horti Botanici Cantabrigiensis, a Catalogue of the 

Botanic Garden at Cambridge. Cambridge, 1771. 8vo. 

Rousseau's Letters ; or the Elements of Botany, addressed to a 

Young Lady ; with Notes, and twenty-four additional Letters, 
explaining the system of Linnasus. Translated from the French. 
London, 1766. 8vo. 
Other editions, 1785, 1794, 1796. 

Thirty-eight Plates, with Explanations intended to illustrate 

Linnaeus' System of Vegetables, and particularly adapted to the 
Letters on the Elements of Botany. London, 1788. 8vo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 357 

1763. Thomas Martyn {coyiiinued). Flora Rustica, exhibiting figures of 

such Plants as are either useful or hurtful in Husbandry ; with 
Scientific Characters, &c. London, 1792-4. 8vo. 

The Language of Botany ; being a Dictionary of the Terms 

made use of in that Science, principally by Linnaeus, &c. London, 
1793. 8vo. 

The Gardeners' and Botanists' Dictionary of the late Phihp Miller, 

corrected and newly arranged, with additions. With biblio- 
graphy and list of authors. London, 1803-7. 4 vols, folio. 

Various papers contributed to the Transactions of the Linnaean 

Society. 4to. 

1764. Rev. Walter Harte. Essays on Husbandry, and a Treatise on 

Lucerne, by W. H., Canon of Windsor. With plates. 1764 and 

1770. 
The Dutch Florist, from the Dutch of Van Campen. 1764, 4to. * 
Museum Rusticum et Commerciale, &c. London, 1764. 6 vols. 

8vo. * 

De Re Rustica. A similar work to the above, begun 1768, completed 

1770. 2 vols. 8vo. * 

These three works are thus described by Johnson. 
William Shenstone. Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening, in 

Essays on Men and Manners. 1764. 3 vols. 8vo. 
The Complete Farmer ; or. Dictionary of Husbandry. Published by 

David Henry. 1764. 
Johnson mentions a second edition, 1768. 

1766. John Locke. Observations upon the growth and culture of Vines 

and OUves, &c., from his original MS. in the possession of the Earl 
of Shaftesbury. London, 1766. 8vo. 

1767. The rise and progress of the present Taste in planting Parks, Pleasure 

Grounds, Gardens, &c., from the time of Henry VIII. to George III. 
In a poetic epistle to the Right Hon. Charles, Lord Viscount Irwin. 
1767. 

James Rutter and Daniel Carter. Modern Eden, or the Gardener's 
universal Guide, &c. London, 1767. 8vo. * 

John Giles. Ananas ; or a Treatise on the Pine Apple, &c. To which 
is added the true method of raising the finest Melons with the 
greatest success, &c. London, 1767. 8vo. 

W. Wrighte. Grotesque Architecture. Consisting of plans, eleva- 
tions, and sections for summer and winter hermitages, grottos, 
cascades .... &c. 29 plates. London, 1767. 

another edition. London, 1790. 

Geo. Dionysius Ehret, f.r.s. Of a new Peruvian Plant lately intro- 
duced into the English Gardens (the Nolana prostrata of Linnaeus). 
Phil. Trans. 1767. 

John Abercrombie. Every Man his own Gardener. 1767. i2mo. 

This work has the name of Thomas Mawe only on the title, although written entirely by 
Abercrombie, and went through several later editions, in which both names usually appeared. 

The Universal Gardener and Botanist, &c. London, 1778. 4to, 

The Garden Mushroom, its Nature and Cultivation, &c. London, 

1779. 8vo. 



358 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1767. John Abercrombie (continued). The British Fruit Garden, and Art of 

Pruning, &c. London, 1779. 8vo. 

The Complete Forcing Gardener, &c. London, 1781. i2mo. 

The Complete Wall-tree Pruner, &c. London, 1783. i2mo. 

The Propagation and Botanical Arrangement of Plants and Trees, 

useful and ornamental. London, 1784. 2 vols. i2mo. 
The Gardener's Pocket Dictionary, &c. London, 1786. 3 vols. 

i2mo. 
Daily Assistant in the Modern Practice of English Gardening,&c. 

London, 1789. i2mo. 

The Universal Gardener's Kalendar, &c. London, 1789. i2mo. 

The Complete Kitchen Gardener, and Hot-bed Forcer, &c. 

London, 1789. i2mo. 

The Gardener's Vade-mecum, &c. London, 1789. 8vo. 

The Hot-house Gardener, &c. London, 1789. 8vo. 

The Gardener's Pocket Journal, &c. London, 1791. i2mo. 

Most of these works went through several editions. 

1768. George Mason. An Essay on Design Gardening. London, 1768. 

8vo. 
Revised edition. 1795. 

John Gibson, m.d. The Fruit Gardener, containing the method of 
raising Stocks for multiplying Fruit Trees, &c. London, 1768. 
8vo. 
Presumably by J. Gibson, although his name does not appear on the title-page. 

Thomas Wildman. A Treatise on the culture of Peach Trees, to which 
is added a Treatise on the management of Bees. 1768. 

1769. James Garton. The Practical Gardener and Gentleman's Directory 

for every month in the year, &c. London, 1769. i2mo. 

another edition. Dublin, 1770. i2mo. 

Anthony Powell. The Royal Gardener, or complete Calendar of 
Gardening for every month in the year, &c. London, 1769. i2mo. 

Adam Taylor. A Treatise on the Anana, or Pine Apple, &c. Devizes, 
1769. 8vo. 

The Hon. Daines Barrington. On the Trees which are supposed to 

be Indigenous in Great Britain. 1769. 
Chestnut Trees not Indigenous in Great Britain. 1771. 

Mr. Pegge's Observations on the Growth of the Vine in England, 

considered and answered. 1777. 

On the Progress of Gardening, in a letter to Mr. Norris, 1782. 

These treatises are all published in the ArchaBologia. 
John Dicks. The New Gardener's Dictionary, or the whole Art of 
Gardening fully and accurately displayed. London, 1769. Folio. 
another edition. 1771. Folio. 

Richard Weston. Tracts on practical Agriculture and Gardening 
... to which is added, a Complete Chronological Catalogue of 
English Authors on Agriculture, Gardening, &c. London, 1769. 
8vo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 359 

1769. Richard Weston {continued). Second edition, greatly enlarged. 1773. 

The author's name appears in this but not in the first editions. 

Botanicus universalis et hortulanus, &c. 4 vols. London, 1770- 

1777. 8vo. 

The Gardener's and Planter's Calendar. London, 1773. 8vo. 

The Gardener's Pocket Calendar. (2nd ed.) London, Bell's 

edition. No date, about 1779. i2mo. 

Flora Anglicana. ... or a Catalogue of Trees . . . Native as well as 

exoticks coltivated in English Nurseries, greenhouses . . . Cata- 
logue of seeds . . . annually imported from America. London, 
1775-89. 8vo. 

A new cheap Manure . . . Alabaster or gypsum. Leicester, 1791. 

8vo. 

1770. Horace Walpole. Essay on Modern Gardening, written in 1770, 

printed with a French translation on opposite pages by the 
Due de Nivernois. Strawberry Hill, 1785. 4to. 

John Dove. Strictures on Agriculture, wherein a discovery of the 
Physical course of Vegetation, of the Food of Plants, and the 
Rudiments of Tillage, is attempted. London, 1770. i2mo. 

LiNNiEUS — Milne. Institutes of Botany ; containing accurate, com- 
pleat, and easy Descriptions of all the known Genera of Plants ; 
from the Latin of Charles Van Linne, by Rev. Colin Milne, ll.d. 
London, 1770. 4to. 

A Botanical Dictionary ; or. Elements of Systematic and Philosophical 
Botany, etc. London, 1770. 8vo. 2nd edition, 1777. Supple- 
ment, 1778. 3rd and enlarged edition, 1850. 8vo. 

The Gardener's Alphabetical Calendar. 1770. i2mo. * 

The Pocket Kitchen Gardener. 1770. i2mo. * 

The Pocket Flower Gardener. 1770. i2mo. * 

These three works, without authors' names, are mentioned by Johnson (? T. Ellis — see 1779). 

Thomas Wheatley, or Whately. Observations on Modern Garden- 
ing, illustrated by descriptions. London, 1770. 8vo. 
Several later editions, the fourth, 1777, fifth, 1793. 

John Ellis. Directions for bringing over Seeds and Plants from the 
East Indies and other distant Countries in a state of Vegetation. 
London, 1770. 4to. 

Description of the Mangostan and Bread Fruit Tree. London, 

1775. 4to. 

An Historical Account of Coflfee. With engravings and botanical 

descriptions of the tree ... its culture and use. London, 1774. 
4to. 

1771. William Curtis. Flora Londinensis. 1771. S vols, folio. 2 vols. 

added by Sir W. J. Hooker, 1828. 

Observations on British Grasses. London, 1790. 8vo. Other 

editions, 1840, 18 12. 

r^ The Botanical Magazine (begun by W. Curtis). London, 1787. 

Coloured plates. 

First series, 1787 to 1826, 53 vols. ; Index, 1828. Edited by William Curtis until his death 
in 1799, then by Dr. Sims. Second series, owned by S. Curtis, and edited by W. J. Hooker, 
1827 to 1844, 17 vols. Third series, owned by Reeve Brothers, edited by Sir W.J. Hooker, 
1845 until 1865, and continued by his son, Sir Joseph Hooker, and Sir W. Thiselton Dyer. 
Fourth series, which still continues, was begun in 1905. 



36o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1771. Matthew Peters. The Rational Farmer, or a Treatise on Agri- 

culture and Tillage. London, 1771. 8vo. 

James Header. The Modern Gardener or Universal Kalendar . . . 
from the Diary and MSS. of the late Mr. Hitt, corrected and im- 
proved by J. M. London, 1771. i2mo. 

The Planter's Guide or Pleasure Gardener's Companion. London, 

1779. Oblong 8vo. 

John Reinhold Forster, ll.d. Florae Americae Septentrionalis, or 
A Catalogue of the Plants of North America. London, 177 1. 8vo. 

Characteres generum Plantarum, quas in itinera ad insulas Maris 

AustraHs, illegerunt, descripserunt, et delineaverunt annis 1772-3. 
London, 1776. 4to. 

1772. Louis de St. Pierre. The Art of planting and cultivating the Vine, 

&c. according to the most approved methods in France. London, 
1772. i2mo. 

1773. N. Wallis. The Carpenter's Treasure, a collection of designs for 

temples .... and bridges in the Gothic taste ... a complete system 
i^ for rural decorations. New edition, with 16 plates. London, 

Andrew Coltee Ducarel, ll.b. and ll.d. A Letter to Wm. Watson, 
M.D., upon the early Cultivation of Botany in England ; and some 
particulars about John Tradescant, Gardener to King Charles I. 
London, 1773. 4to. 

Fables of Flowers &c. with Zephyrus, written for the amusement of 
H.H. The Princess Royal, by the Author of China Emblems 
&c. London, 1773. 8vo. 

1774. John Coakley Lettsom. Hortus Uptoneniis. A Catalogue of Dr. 

Fothergill's garden at Upton at the time of his decease. (No 
date) c. 1774. 8vo. 

Grovehill, a rural and horticultural sketch. 1784. 4to. 

A translation of Abbe de Commerell's account of the culture of 

the Mangel Wurzel or Root of Scarcity. London, 1788. 

1775. LiNN^us — Jenkinson. A Generic and Specific Description of British 

Plants ; translated from the Genera et Species Plantarum, of 
Linnaeus ; with Notes and Observations, by James Jenkinson. 
Kendal, 1775. 8vo, 

Rev. Samuel Ward. A Modern System of Natural History, con- 
taining accurate descriptions and faithful histories of animals, 
vegetables, and minerals. London, 1775-77. 12 vols. i2nio. * 

An Essay on the different natural Situations of Gardens. London, 

: 1775. 4to. * 

John Edwards. A Select Collection of one hundred plates . . . Exotic 
and British flowers which blow in our English Gardens. London, 

1775. Folio. 

William Boutcher (nurseryman at Comely gardens, Edinburgh), A 
Treatise on Forest -trees. Edinburgh, 1775. 4to. 

1776. Henry Home, Lord Kames. The Gentleman Farmer. Edinburgh, 

1776. 8vo. 

Several later editions — the sixth in 1815. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 361 

1776. William Withering, m.d., f.r.s., f.l.s. A Botanical Arrangement of 

all the Vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain, with an 
easy Introduction to the Study of Botany. (Plates.) Birm. 

1776. 2 vols. 8vo. * 

2nd edition. London, 1778-90. 3 vols. 3rd edition. 1796. 

4 vols. Svo. 7th. 1830, in 4 vols. 

An account of the Foxglove and some of its medicinal uses. Bir- 
mingham, 1785. 8vo., with I folded coloured plate. 

1777. James Anderson, ll.d. Thoughts on Planting, by Agricola. Edin. 

1777. Svo. 

First appeared in the Edinburgh Weekly Magazine (see 1717). 

A Description of a Patent Hot-House, &c. London, 1804. i2mo. 

William Wilson. A Treatise on the forcing of Early Fruits, and the 
management of Hot Walls. London, 1777. i2mo. 

Conrad Loddige's Catalogue of Plants and Seeds sold by C. L. . . at 
Hackney near Loudon. 1777. 8vo. 
The names of plants are in German as weU as in English. 

The Botanical Cabinet. London, 1818-33. 20 vols. Svo. 

Joseph Heeley. Letter on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil and the 
Leasowes, &c. London, 1777. i2mo. 

Description of Hagley Park. London, 1777. Svo. 

John Kennedy (gardener to Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Bart.). A 
Treatise on Planting, Pruning, and on the Management of Fruit 
Trees. London, 1777. Svo. 

A Treatise upon Planting, Gardening, and the Management of the 

Hot-house. 2nd ed., enlarged. London, 1777. 2 vols. Svo. 

John Miller. An Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus. 

London, 1777. 2 vols. Imp. folio. Fine plates. 
another edition. London, 1779. 2 vols. Svo. 

1778. The Practical Gardener, &c. London, 1778. No author's name 

[? Abercrombie]. * 

N. Swinden. The Beauties of Flora displayed, &c. London, 1778. 
Svo. 

1779. Adam Neale. A Catalogue of Plants in the garden of John Black- 

burne, Esq., at Orford, Lancashire, alphabetically arranged, 
according to the Linnaean system. Warrington, 1779- Svo. 

William Speechley. A Treatise on the culture of the Pine Apple and 
the management of Hot-Houses. York, 1779- Svo. 

A Treatise on the culture of the Vine in England. York, 1 790. 4to. 

These two works were issued together, York, 1821. 

Thomas Ellis (gardener to the Bishop of London). The Gardener's 
Pocket Calendar. London, 1779. i2mo. 
An earlier edition is said to have been published anonymously in 1770. 

A General Dictionary of Husbandry, Planting, Gardening, and the 
Vegetable part of the Materia Medica .... selected from the best 
'authors by the Editors of the Farmer's Magazine. Bath, 1779- 
2 vols. Svo. 



362 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1779. Gilbert Brookes. Complete British Gardener. 1779. i2mo. 

1780. Alexander Wilson, m.d. Some Observations relating to the In- 

fluence of Climate on Vegetables and Animal Bodies. London, 
1780. 8vo. 

John Trusler. Practical Husbandry. 1780. 8vo. 

Elements of Modern Gardening. 8vo. 

The title-page has neither name nor date. The B. M. Catalogue ascribes it to Trusler, 
and assigns it to the year 1800. Johnson does not give any author, and dates it 1784. 

1781. William Houstoun, d.d. Reliquiae Houstounianae, a Catalogue and 

Description of Plants. 1781. 4to. 
Published by Sir Joseph Banks. 

Samuel Fullmer. The Young Gardener's best Companion for the 
Kitchen and Fruit Garden. London, 1781. i2mo. 

1782. William Raley. A Treatise on the Management of Potatoes. Lon- 

don, 1782. 8vo. 

1783. Ermenonville — Malthus. An Essay on Landscape. From the 

French of Ermenonville. 1783. i2mo. * 

No author's name, but said by Johnson to be by Mr. Malthus. 
Charles Bryant. Flora Diaetetica, or History of Esculent Plants, &c. 
London, 1783. 8vo. 

A Dictionary of the Ornamental Trees, &c. Norwich, 1790. 8vo. 

de Lille. — On Gardening. Translated from the French of I'Abbe 
de Lille. 1783. 4to. 

another edition. " The Gardens." London, 1798. 

William Falconer, m.d., f.r.s. An Historical View of the Taste for 
Gardening and Laying out Grounds among the Nations of Anti- 
quity. 1783. 8vo. * 

An Essay on the Preservation of the Health of Persons employed 

in Agriculture, &c. Bath, 1789. 8vo. 

Miscellaneous Tracts and Collections relating to Natural History, 

&c. Cambridge, 1793. 4to. 

Thomas Kyle. A Treatise on the Management of Peach and Nectarine 
Trees, either in forcing-houses, or on hot and common walls. 
Edinburgh, 1783. 8vo. 

' Catalogue of Plants, with their English and Latin Linnaean 

names, sold by Lucker and Smith, Dalston. 1783. 8vo. 

William Gilpin. Observations . . . relative chiefly to Picturesque 
Beauty. 1783 to 1809. 11 separate vols. 8vo. 
Several distinct works, descriptive of Tours in different parts of England, containing 
accounts of gardens, &c.l 

1785. Samuel Felton. Miscellanies on Ancient and Modern Gardening, 
and on the Scenery of Nature. London, 1785. 8vo. (Without 
author's name.) 

On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening. London, 

1828. 8vo. 

Gleanings on Gardens, chiefly respecting the ancient style in 

England. London, 1829. 8vo. 

William Marshall. Planting and Ornamental Gardening : a Prac- 
tical Treatise. London, 1785. 8vo. (Without author's name.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 363 

1785. William Marshall (continued). Second edition, with the title Planting 

and Rural Ornament. London, 1796. 8vo. 
James Bolton. Filices Britannise, an History of the British proper 
Ferns, with plain and accurate Descriptions, &c. Leeds, 1785. 

John, Earl of Bute. Botanical Tables, containing the different 
famihes of British Plants, &c. London, 1785. 9 vols. 8vo. * 

James Dickson, f.l.s. Fasciculus Plantarum Cryptogamicarum 
Britanniae. London, 1785. 
Dickson was the author of many papers in the Horticultural Society's Transactions. 

1786. Francis Xavier Vispre. A Dissertation on the growth of Wine in 

England. Bath, 1786. 8vo. 
Robert Browne (gardener to Sir Harbord Harbord, Bt., at Gunton, 

Norfolk). A Method to preserve Peach and Nectarine Trees from 

the effect of Mildew, &c. London, 1786. i2mo. 
Rev. Philip le Brocq, m.a. A Description of certain methods of 

Planting, Training, and Managing all kinds of Fruit Trees, Vines, 

&c. London, 1786. 8vo. 

A Sketch of a Plan for making the Tract of Land called the New 

Forest a real Forest, and for various other purposes of the first 
national importance. 1793. 8vo. 

The Compleat Herbal, or Family Physician, giving an account of all 
such Plants as are now used in the Practice of Physic, with their 
Descriptions and Virtues. 2 vols. No author's name. London, 
1787. 8vo. 
George Winter. A new and compendious System of Husbandry, 
containing the mechanical, chemical, and philosophical Elements 
of Agriculture. Bristol, 1787. 8vo. 
1788. Sir James Edward Smith. Some observations on the irritability of 
Vegetables. London, 1788. 4to. 

Plantarum Icones hactenus ineditse, plerumque ad Plantas in 

Herbario Linnaeno conservatus delineatae. London, 1789-91. 
Folio. 

Icones Pictae Plantarum rariorum descriptionibus . . illustratae. 

London, 1790-93. Folio. 

Spicilegium Botanicum. Gleanings in Botany. London, 179 1-2. 

Folio. 

A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland. The figures by 

J. Sowerby. London, 1793. 4to. (only i vol. published). 

Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Botany. London, 1795. 8vo. 

Flora Britannica. London, 1800. 3 vols. 8vo. 

Remarks on the Generic Character of the Decandrous PapaUo- 

naceous Plants of New Holland. London, 1804. 8vo. 

Exotic Botany . . . coloured figures . . of such new, beautiful or 

rare plants as are worthy of cultivation in the Gardens of Britain. 
The figures by J. Sowerby. London, 1804-5. 2 vols. 4to. 

An Introduction to Physiological and Systematic Botany. 

London, 1807. 8vo. 

Review of the Modern State of Botany, &c. Edinburgh. 1817. 

4to. 

A Grammar of Botany. London, 1821. Svo. 



364 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1789. John Graefer. A Descriptive Catalogue of upwards of iioo species 

and varieties of Herbaceous Plants, &c., witii a List of Hardy- 
Ferns, &c., &c. London, 1789. 8vo. * 

James Adam. Practical Essays on Agriculture, containing an Account 
of Soils, and the manner of correcting them ; an Account of the 
culture of all Field Plants ; also on the Culture and management of 
Grass Lands, &c. London, 1789. 2 vols. 8vo. * 

William Aiton. Hortus Kewensis. London, 1789. 3 vols. 8vo. 

Second edition enlarged by his son, William Townsend Aiton, 

18 10- 1 3. 5 vols. 8vo. 

An Epitome of the second edition. London, 18 14. 8vo. 

1790. Richard Pulteney. Historical and biographical sketches of the pro- 

gress of Botany. London, 1790. 2 vols. 8vo. 

General View of the Writings of Linnaeus. London, 1805. 4to. 

Decorations for Plants and Garden. Published by Taylor. Cir. 

1790. 

E. O. Donovan, f.r. and l.s. The Botanical Review, or the Beauties 
of Flora. Nos. 1-7. London, 1790. 

Brulles. Hints for the management of Hot-beds. Bath, 1790. 8vo.* 

William Woodville, m.d. Medical Botany. London, 1790. 3 vols. 
Supplement. James Phillips. 1794. 4to. 

1791. Richard Anthony Salisbury. Icones Stirpium variorum, Descrip- 

tionibus illustratae. London, 1791. 8vo. 

Paradisus Londinensis. London, 1805-8. 4to. 

Salisbury contributed many valuable papers to the Trans. Horticultural Society. 

Erasmus Darwin, m.d., f.r.s. The Botanic Garden, a poem, in two 
parts : part I, The Economy of Vegetation ; part II, The Loves of 
the Plants. London, 179 1. 4to. 

Phytologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening, &c. 

London, 1800. 4to. 

James Sowerby, F.L.s. The Florist's Dehght, &c. London, 179 1. Folio. 

Figures of English Fungi, or Mushrooms. London, 1792- 1803. 

3 vols, folio. 

English Botany, with Sir J. E. Smith, 1790-1820. 36 vols. 8vo. 

William Forsyth, f.a.s. Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and 
Injuries in all kinds of Fruit and Forest Trees, &c. London, 1791. 
8vo, 

A Treatise on the culture and management of Fruit Trees, &c. 

London, 1802. 4to. Third edition, 1803. 

The Linnsean Society's Transactions, first published. 1791. 8vo. 

Among the contributors of papers on Gardening subjects in the early numbers are the 
following : C. C. Babington, H. T. Colebrooke, L. W. DiUwp, R. K. Greville, W. J . Hooker, 
J. Lindley, T. Martyn, R. Rudge, J. E. Smith, J. Sowerby, C. Stevens, J. Woods. 

1792. James Maddock. Florist's Directory and Treatise on the Culture of 

Flowers, &c. London, 1792. 8vo. 

Improved edition by Curtis. London, 18 10. 8vo. Coloured plates. 

1793. John Mason. Double Hyacinths and other curious Flower roots . . . 

imported chiefly from Holland . . . Botany Bay, &c, London. 
1793. i2mo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 365 

1793. Richard Steele. An Essay on Gardening, containing a Catalogue 

of Exotic Plants, (^c. York, 1793. 4to. * 

1794. William Amos. The Theory and Practice of Drill Husbandry. 

London, 1794. 4to. * 

Minutes of Agriculture and Planting. London, 1804. 4to. 

Adrian Hardy Haworth. Observations on the genus Mesembry- 
anthemum. London, 1794. 8vo. 

Synopsis Plantarum Succulentarum, &c. London, 18 12-19. 8vo. 

Samuel Hayes, m.r.l.a. A practical Treatise on Planting. Dublin, 
1794. 8vo. 

James Shaw. Plans, elevations, sections, observations, and explana- 
tions of Forcing houses in Gardening. Whitby, 1794. Folio. 

James McPhail. A Treatise on the Culture of the Cucumber, &c. 

London, 1794. 8vo. Second edition, 1795. 
The Gardener's Remembrancer throughout the year, &c. London, 

1803. Svo. 
William Maunsell, ll.d. Letter on the Culture of Potatoes from the 

Shoots. London, 1794. Svo. 

John Sibthorpe. Flora Oxoniensis. Oxford, 1794. Svo. 

Flora Graeca. 1806- 1840. 10 vols, folio. Very fine plates. 

Not more than 65 copies were issued, 25 of which were coloured by Sowerby. 

Sir Uvedale Price. An Essay on the Picturesque, as compared with 
the sublime and beautiful, &c. London, 1794-98. Svo. 

A Letter to H. Repton, Esq., on the application of the practice, 

as well as the principles of Landscape Painting, to Landscape 
Gardening, &c. London, 1795. Svo. 

A Dialogue on the distinct characters of the Picturesque and the 

Beautiful, in answer to the objections of Mr. Knight. London, 
1801. 

On the Picturesque ; including A Letter to H. Repton, Esq., and 

On Decorations near the House. Edited by Sir Thomas Dick 
Lauder. London, 1S42. 

Humphry Repton. A Letter to Uvedale Price, Esq. on Landscape 
Gardening. London, 1794. 4to. 

Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening, &c. London, 1795. 

Oblong folio. 

Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, 

&c. London, 1803. 4to. 

An Enquiry into the changes in Landscape Gardening. London, 

1806. Svo. 

On the introduction of Indian Architecture and Gardening. 

London, 1808. Foho. * 

On the supposed effects of Ivy on Trees. Trans. Linn. Soc. 

London, 18 10. * 

Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening. 

London, 18 17. Folio. 

Richard Payne Knight. The Landscape ; a Didactic Poem, in 3 
books, addressed to Uvedale Price, Esq. 1794. 4to. 

Review of the Landscape ; also of an Essay on the Picturesque ; 

with Practical Remarks on Rural Ornament. 1795. Svo. 



366 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1795. William Roxburgh, m.d., f.r.s. Plants of the Coast of Coromandel, 

&c. London, 1795. 
Flora indica . . . Serampore, 1820-24. 2 vols. 8vo., 1832, 

3 vols. 8vo. 
Jedediah Simmons. Valuable secrets relative to Gardening and 

Agriculture now made known. 2nd edition. London, 1795. 8vo. 

1796. Francis Bauer. Delineation of Exotick Plants cultivated in the Royal 

Garden at Kew, drawn and coloured, and the botanical characters 
displayed, according to the Linnasan System. London, 1796. 
Foho. 

lUustrationes Florae Novae HoUandiae, &c. Part I. 18 13. 

John Plaw. Ferme Ornee, or Rural Improvements. A series of 

domestic and ornamental designs suited to parks . . . &c. London, 
1796. 4to. 
Rev. Charles Marshall. Introduction to the Knowledge and 
Practice of Gardening ; with Hints on Fish Ponds. London, 
1796. i2mo. 
Several later editions — the third, 1800. 
George Lindley. The plan of an Orchard, exhibiting at one view a 
select quantity of Trees, &c. 1796. * 

Described by Johnson as a folio sheet. 

An Account of the Culture of Potatoes in Ireland. 1796. 8vo. 

(Mentioned by Johnson.) * 

James Don. Hortus Cantabrigensis, a Catalogue of Plants Indigenous 
and Exotic. 1796. 8vo. 

1797. Strickland Freeman. Select Specimens of British Plants. Five 

plates. London, 1797. Folio. 
Part II. contains descriptions of the plants by G. Shaw. 
Francis Duckenfield Astley. A few minutes* advice to Gentlemen 
of landed Property, and the admirers of Forest Scenery, &c., &c. 
Chester, 1797. i2mo. * 

Hints to Planters, from various Authors of esteemed Authority. 

Manchester, 1807. 8vo. * 

Thomas Skip Dyot Bucknal. The Orchardist. London, 1797. 8vo. 

Thomas Andrew Knight, f.r.s. A Treatise on the Culture of the 
Apple and Pear, and on the manufacture of Cyder and Perry. 
London, 1797. i2mo. 

Some Doubts relative to the efficacy of Mr. Forsyth's Plaister 

in renovating Trees. London, 1802. 4to. 

Report of a Committee of the Horticultural Society of London. 

London, 1805. 4to. 

A Letter on the origin of Blight, &c. London, 1806. 

Pomona Herefordiensis, or a descriptive account of the old 

Cyder and Perry Fruits of Herefordshire. London, 181 1. 4to. 

Knight was the author of numerous papers in Trans. Hort. Soc. and other periodicals. 

William Salisbury. Hortus Paddingtonensis, &c. London, 1797. 8vo. 
The Botanist's Companion, &c. London, 18 16. i2mo. 

Hints to the Proprietors of Orchards and Growers of Fruit in 

General. London, 18 16. i2mo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 367 

1797. William Salisbury (continued). The Cottager's Agricultural Com- 

panion, &c. 1822. i2nio. 

Also Essay on packing Plants for exportation. * 

Nicholson's Journal, XXX., p. 339. 
Walter Nicol. The Scotch Forcing Gardener, &c. Edinburgh, 

1797. 8vo. 

Practical Planter, &c. Edinburgh, 1799. Svo. 

Villa Garden Directory, &c. Edinburgh, 1809. 8vo. 

Gardener's Kalendar, &c. Edinburgh, 1810. Svo. 

Planter's Kalendar, &c. Edinburgh, 18 12. Svo. 

Henry Andrews. The Botanist's Repository, &c. Edinburgh, 
1797-99. 10 vols. 4to. 

A Review of Plants hitherto figured in the Botanist's Repository. 

Edinburgh, 1801. 4to. * 

Engravings of Ericas or Heaths, with Botanical descriptions. 

London, 1802. Folio. 
• The Heathery, or Monograph of the genus Erica, monthly num- 
bers, in 6 vols. London, 1804 and 1814. 

Geraniums. London, 1805. 2 vols. 4to. 124 coloured plates. 

Roses. London, 1805-28. 2 vols. 4to. 

1798. Clement Archer, m.r.l.a. Miscellaneous Observations on the effect 

of Oxygen on the Animal and Vegetable Systems, &c, Bath, 

1798. Svo. 

W. Sole. Menthae Britannica, being a new Botanical arrangement of 
all the British Mints. 24 plates. Bath, 1798. Folio. 

Robinson. Forms of Stoves for Forcing Houses. London, 1798. Svo.* 

1799. Robert John Thornton, m.d. A new Illustration of the Sexual 

System of Linnaeus. 1799. 

The Temple of Flora. 1S05. Imperial folio. 

Beautifully engraved titles and coloured plates. 

Family Herbal. (Engravings by Bewick.) 18 10. 

Botanical Extracts, or Philosophy of Botany. (3 vols.) 18 10. 

A Grammar of Botany containing an explanation of the system 

of Linnaeus . . . for the use of Schools. London, 181 1. i2mo. 
Illustrated. Second edition. London, 18 14. Svo. 

Lady Charlotte Murray. British Garden. Bath, 1799. Svo. 
Third edition. London, 1S09. Svo. 

1800. William Pontey. The Profitable Planter, &c. Huddersfield, 1800. 

i2mo. 

The Forest Pruner, &c. London, 1805. i2mo. 

The Rural Improver. London, 1822. 

Mrs. Montolieu. The Enchanted Plants, Fables in Verse. London, 
1800. Svo. 

The Gardens, a Poem. From the French of L'Abbe J. de Lille. 

1805. Svo. (See 17S3. Earlier translation without the trans- 
lator's name.) 

Rev. Thomas Owen, m.a. The Three Books of M. Terentius Varro, 
concerning Agriculture, translated into English. London, 1800. 
Svo. 



368 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1800. Rev. Thomas Owen, m.a. {continued). Agricultural Pursuits, translated 
from the Greek. Londoa, 1805. 8vo. 

TewirSviKa. Geoponika. London, 1805-6. 2 vols. 8vo. 

Translation of the 14 Books of Palladius on Agriculture. London, 

1807. 8vo. 

1802. William Turton, m.d., f.l.s. A General System of Nature through 

the three grand kingdoms of Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals. 
Translated from Gmelin's last edition of the Systema Naturae of 
Linnseus. 1802-6. 7 vols. 8vo. 
Rural Recreations, or the Gardener's Instructor, &c. By a Society of 
Practical Gardeners. With plates. London, 1802. 8vo. 

1803. Aylmer Bourke Lambert. Description of the Genus Pinus. London, 

1803. Atlas folio. Plates drawn by Bauer (only 25 sets are said 
to have been taken'off) . Reissued in imp. 4to., 1832. 

John Claudius Loudon. Observations on laying out the Public 
Squares of London in the Literary Journal. 1803. * 

Observations on the formation and management of useful and 

ornamental Plantations, &c. Edin., 1804. 8vo. 

A short Treatise on some improvements lately made in Hot- 
houses. Edin., 1805. 8vo. 

A Treatise on forming, improving, and managing Country Resi- 
dences, &c. London, 1806. 2 vols. 4to. 

Hints on the formation of Gardens and Pleasure Grounds, &c. 

1812. 4to. 

Remarks on the Construction of Hot-houses, &c. 18 17. 4to. 

Sketches of Curvilinear Hot-houses, &c. 18 18. 

A comparative view of the Curvilinear, and common mode of 

Roofing Hot-houses. London, 18 18. Folio. * 

,V The Encyclopaedia of Gardening. London, 1822. 8vo. 

This work went through several later editions. 

The different modes of cultivating the Pine Apple, &c. London, 

1822. 8vo. 

The Gardener's Magazine and Register of Rural and Domestic 

improvements, conducted by J. C. Loudon. 1826-34. 2nd series, 
1835-43. 8vo. 

The Encyclopaedia of Plants. London, 1838. 8vo. 

Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum. 8 vols. 1838. Plates. 

\ Trees and Shrubs, and abridgement of the Arboretum . . . con- 
taining hardy trees and shrubs of Britain. London, 1842. 8vo. 
another edition. 1875. 8vo. 

Loudon was the author of several other works and numerous treatises, and editor of the 
Gardener's Magazine, &c. MRS. LOUDON also was the author of many works on Gardening, 
among which are the foUowingr-^^ 

Flower Garden of Ornamental Annuals. London, 1840. 4to. 

Ladies' Companion to Flower Garden. London, 1841. i2mo. 

y^ The Ladies* Flower Garden of Ornamental Perennials. 2 vols. 

1843. 4*0- Coloured plates. 

Ladies' Country Companion. London, 1846. lamo. 

' British Wild Flowers. London, 1846. 4to. 

[ The Amateur Gardener's Calendar. London, 1857. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 369 

1803. Samuel Curtis. Florist lectures on Botany. 1803-4. 8vo. 
Monograph of the genus Camelia. London, 1819. Folio. 

Beauties of Flora. 1820. Folio. 

1804. R. W. Dickson, m.d. Practical Agriculture, or a Complete System 

of Modern Husbandry, &c. London, 1804 and 1805. 4to. 
Editor of the Agricultural Magazine from July, 1807, to December, 1809. 

1805. Edward Rudge, f.l.s. Plantarum Guianse rariarum, Icones et De- 

scriptiones. London, 1805-7. 4 vols, folio. 

1806. William Griffin. Treatise on the cultivation of the Pine Apple, 

Newark, 1806. 8vo. 
Another edition. 1810. 
William Hooker (Botanic painter). The Paradisus Londinensis, 
containing plants cultivated in the vicinity of the Metropolis. 
The Descriptions by Richard Anthony Salisbury, the figures by 
Wm. Hooker, pupil of Francis Bauer . . . London. 2 vols. 4to. 
Vol. I, 1806 ; vol. II, 1807. Some plates dated 1808. 

Pomona Londinensis. London, i8i8. Folio. Fine coloured 

plates. 

Mrs. Henrietta M. Moriarty. Viridarium ; or Green House Plants. 
London, 1806. 8vo. 

W. Wallis Mason. Experiments on the Culture of Carrots. * 

Nicholson's Journal, XV., p. 57. 1806. 

1807. George Todd. Plans, Elevations, and Sections of Hot-houses. 

London, 1807. Roy. 4to. With coloured plates. 

William Shaw. The Practical Gardener. London, 1807. 8vo. * 

Alexander Macdonald. A complete Dictionary of practical Gar- 
dening. 1807. 2 vols. 4to. 

Johnson says the author of this was R. W. Dickson (see 1804), and that Macdonald was an 
assumed name. 

William Watson. On the Culture of Turnips. * 

Nicholson's Journal, XVI., p. 14. 

1808. Catalogue of plants in the Botanic Garden at Liverpool. Liverpool, 

1808. 8vo. 

1809. J. Acton. On the Germination of Seeds, in a letter. i8og. * 

Nicholson's Journal, XXIII., p. 214. 
J. C. Krafft. Plans of the most beautiful picturesque Gardens in 
France, England, and Germany. Paris, 1809-10. Oblong folio. 
2 vols, (text in English, French, and German). 192 plates. 

James Dede. The English Botanist's Pocket Companion, containing 
the essential Generic characters of every British Plant, arranged 
agreeably to tlie Linnsean system. London, 1809. i2mo. 

Joseph Knight. An Essay on the cultivation of the Plants belonging 
to the Order of Proteae. London, 1809. 4to. 

Mrs. Agnes Ibbetson. Many Contributions to Nicholson's Journal, 
on Plants and Seeds, &c. 1809. * 

Sydenham Edwards. Sixty-one Plates, representing about 150 rare 
plants. London, 1809. 4to. 

24 



370 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1809. Sydenham Edwards {continued). The New Botanic Garden illustrated, 

with 133 plates engraved by Sansom from the original pictures, and 
Elll' coloured with the greatest exactness from drawings by Sydenham 
Edwards. London, 1812. 2 vols. 4to. 

The Botanical Register, or Ornamental Flower Garden and 

Shrubbery. 1815-1827. 8vo. ^^i vols, (including index). 

The continuation to 1847 was edited by J. Lindley. 

1810. Thomas Haynes. Improved System of Nursery Gardening. London, 

1 8 10. 8vo. 

Interesting Discoveries in Horticulture, being an easy system of 

Propagating American and Bog Soil Plants, &c. London, 1810. 
8vo. 

A Treatise on the improved culture of the Sti^awberry, Raspberry, 

and Gooseberry. London, 18 12. 8vo. 

On collecting Soils, and composts. London, 18 12. i2mo. 

1811. The Plants. A poem, with notes and observations by Wm. Tighe. 

Cantos 3 and 4 : The Vine and The Palm. London, 181 1, 8vo. 
(Cantos I, 2 were published earlier, and not reprinted.) 

Peter Lindegaard. On the mode of forcing the Vine in Denmark. 
London, 181 1. 8vo. (Mentioned by Johnson.) * 

W. J. TiTFORD, M.D. Sketches towards a Hortus Botanicus Ameri- 
canus ... or coloured plates with concise . . descriptions ... of 
New and Valuable plants of the West Indies, North and South 
America. London, 18 11. Small folio. 

another edition, 18 12. 

1812. Transactions of the Horticultural Society begun in 18 12. First 

Series, 4to. 7 vols. 1812 to 1830. Second Series. 1835 to 
1848. With general index. 

The following are among the Authors of the articles in the early volumes : — Sir J. Banks ; 
J. Braddick ; Sir B. Boothby ; A. Carlisle ; J. Dickson ; J. Dunbar ; J. Fairweather ; Fuller ; 
Sir H. Goodriche ; C. Harrison ; A. K. Haworth ; Sir C. Hawkins ; J . Hayward ; Daniel Hill ; 
S. Jeeves ; D. Judd ; M. Keenes ; W. Kent ; T. A. Knight ; J. Lindley ; G. Loddiges ; Lutterel ; 
J. Maher ; H. S. Matthews ; J. Mean ; W. Morgan ; G. H. Noehden ; J. Sabine ; R. A. Salis- 
bury ; A. Seton ; A. Sherbrook ; J. Simpson ; VV. Spence ; J. Turner ; J. Venables ; J. Wcirre ; 
J. VVedgewood ; R. Wilbraham ; T. Wilkinson ; J. Williams ; J. E. Wilmot. 

George Brookshaw. Pomona Britannica, or Correct Delineations of 

British Fruits, with Descriptions. Atlas folio. London, 181 2. 
another edition. Elephant 4to. 18 17. 2 vols. Fine coloured plates. 

A Treatise on Flower Painting. (Part I.) 1816. 4to. * 

I have not absolutely identified this work, but have seen a volume with neither the author's 
name or date with the following title, which may be the same : " The Florist, containing 
sixty plates of the most beautiful flowers . . with Instructions for drawing and painting 
them according to Nature. London. Small 4to. 

The Horticultural Repository ... of English Fruit. 18 17. 8vo. 

another edition. 1823. 8vo. 

Joseph Taylor. Arbores Mirabiles, or a Description of the most 
remarkable Trees, Plants, and Shrubs in all parts of the World. 
Illustrated. London, 18 12. i2mo. 

The Bible Garden. A brief Description of all the trees and plants 

mentioned in Holy Scripture. London, 1836. i6mo. 

Thomas Hogg. A concise and practical Treatise on the growth and 
culture of the Carnation, Pink, Auricula, Polyanthus, Ranunculus, 
Tulip, &c. London, 181 2. i2mo. 
'' Second edition. London, lizz. ismo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 371 

1813. Peter Lyon. Observations on the barrenness of Fruit Trees ; the 

means of prevention and cure. Edinburgh, 18 13. 8vo. 
A Treatise on the Physiology and Pathology of Trees, &c. Edin- 
burgh, 18 16. 8vo. 

Comely Garden, Edinburgh. (Mentioned by Watt.) * 

The Modern Practice of Enghsh Gardening, in a concise Monthly 

Display. Anonymous. Manchester, 18 13. 

1814. John Gushing. The Exotic Gardener. London, 18 14. 8vo. 

Third edition. 1836. 8vo. 
John Lunan (of the Island of Jamaica). Hortus Jamaicensis, or a 
Botanical Description of Indigenous Plants and Exotics growing 
in the Island of Jamaica. London, 18 14. 2 vols. 4to. 

Leonard Phillips, Jun. A Catalogue of Fruit Trees for sale. Lon- 
don, 18 14. Folio. * 

Transactions in the Fruit Tree Nursery, Vauxhall. London, 

1815. Folio. * 

E. Weeks. The Forcer's Assistant, &c. &c.. Chipping Norton, 18 14. 
8vo. * 

Sir John Sinclair. General Report of the Agricultural state, and 
Political circumstances of Scotland. Edinburgh, 18 14. 8vo. 

Account of some experiments to promote the improvement of 

Fruit Trees, by peeling the bark. London, 1820. 8vo. 

Frederick Pursh. Flora Americana Septentrionalis, or a Systematic 
Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America. 
London, 18 14. 8vo. 

1816. Maria E. Jackson. The Florist's Manual, or Hints for the Con- 
struction of a Gay Flower Garden. (" By a Lady.") London, 
1 8 16. i2mo. 

new edition, with additions, 1827. (Title-page states " By the 

Authoress of Botanical Dialogues.") 

J. Salter. A Treatise upon Bulbous Roots, &c. Bath, 1816. lamo.* 

George Sinclair. Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis, &c. London, 
18 16. Foho. 

Hortus Ericaeus Woburnensis. London, 1825. 4to. * 

An Essay on the Weeds of Agriculture. London, 1826. 8vo. 

Isaac Emmerton. A plain and practical Treatise on the culture and 
management of the Auricula, &c. London, 18 16. 

second edition. London, 1819. 8vo. 

1817. James Mean. The Practical Gardener. London, 1817. i2mo. 

The Gardener's Companion. London, 18 18. i2mo. 

Both works by John Abercrombie, edited and enlarged by James Mean. 

W. B. Page. Page's Prodromus, or a general nomenclature of all the 
plants, indigenous and exotic, cultivated in the Southampton 
Botanic Gardens, &c. London, 18 17. 8vo. 

Henry Smith. Flora Sarisburiensis . . . delineation from Nature of 
English Plants with their uses in Medicine, the Arts, and Agri- 
culture. Sahsbury, 18 17. 8vo. 

The Shrubbery Almanack (a single sheet). 18 18. * 

24 — 2 



372 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1818. Joseph Hayward. The Science of Horticulture. London, 1818. 8vo. 

The Science of Agriculture. London, 1825. 8vo. 

Robert Sweet, f.l.s. Hortus Suburbanus Londinensis, &c. London, 
181 8. 8vo. 

The Hot-house and Green-house Manual, &c. London, 1820. 

8vo. * 

second edition. London, 1825. 

Geraniaceas. 5 vols. 8vo. 1820-30. 500 coloured plates. 

The British Flower Garden. 8vo. 1823-g. Second series. 

1831-8. 
Hortus Britannicus, &c. London, 1826. 8vo. 

Cistineae. London, 1830. 8vo. 

John Buonaroti Papworth. Rural Residences . . . with Observa- 
tions on Landscape Gardening. London, 18 1 8. 4to. 

Hints on Ornamental Gardening .... designs for Garden Build- 
ings, &c. London, 1823. 4to. 

1820. Henry Field. Memoirs . . of the Botanic Gardens, Chelsea, be- 
longing to the Society of Apothecaries. London, 1820. 8vo. 

another edition, continued by R. H. Semple. 1878. 8vo. 

John Lindley. Rosarum monographia ; or a botanical History of 
Roses. London, 1820. 8vo. 

Instructions for collecting and planting seeds and plants in 

foreign countries, &c. London, 1823. 8vo. 

Introductory lecture on Botany. London, 1829. 8vo. 

A Synopsis of the British Flora. London, 1829. i2mo. 

The Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants. London, 

1830-40. 8vo. 

An Introduction to the . . . Natural System of Botany. London, 

1830. 8vo. 

An Introduction to Botany. London, 1832. 8vo. 

An Outline of the first principles of Horticulture. London, 

1832. 8vo. 

Ladies' Botany, &c. London, 1834. 2 vols. 8vo. 

A Key to structural, physiological, and systematic Botany. 

London, 1835. 8vo. 

• Flora Medica ; or Botanical Account of the more important plants 

used in Medicine, &c. 1838. 8vo. 

Sertum Orchidaceum. Coloured plates. 1838. Folio. 

School Botany : an explanation of the characters of the principal 

. . . Flora of Europe. 1839. 8vo. 
• The Theory of Horticulture ; or an attempt to explain the . . . 

operations of gardening upon physiological principles. London, 

1 840. 8 vo. 
Pomologia Britannica. London, 1841. 3 vols. 8vo. Coloured 

plates. 
Assisted in Vol. III. by R. Thompson. 

Orchidaceae Lindenianae ; or notes upon collection of orchids . . . 

by Mr. J. Linden. London, 1846. 8vo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 373 

1820. John Lindley {continued). The Vegetable Kingdom. London, 1846. 

8vo. 

A Glossary of the technical terms used in Botany. 1848. 8vo. 

Folia Orchidacea. London, 9 parts, 1852-59. 8vo. 

The Symmetry of Vegetation. London, 1854. 8vo. 

Descriptive Botany. 1858. 8vo. 

Richard Pigott. A Short, plain Treatise on Carnations and Pinks. 
1820. 8vo. * 

CuTHBERT William Johnson. An Essay on the uses of Salt for agri- 
cultural purposes. London, 1820. 8vo. 
Observations on the employment of Salt in Agriculture and Horti- 
culture. 1825. 
Several later editions — the eleventh in 1835. 

1821. Hon. and Rev. Wm. Herbert. Appendix to the Botanical Magazine 

and Botanical Register. London, 1821. 8vo. * 

Amaryllidacese. 1837. 

Henry Phillips. Pomarium Britannicum, an historical and botanical 

account of fruits known in Britain. London, 1820. 8vo. 
New Edition, under the title Companion to the Orchard. London, 

1827. 8vo. Another edition, 183 1. 

History of Cultivated Vegetables. London, 1822. 2 vols. 8vo. 

This is said to be the second edition, but the date of the first edition is not known. 
New edition under the title. Companion to the Kitchen Garden. 

183 1. 2 vols. 8vo. 
Sylva Florifera, or the Shrubbery Historically . . treated. London, 

1823. 2 vols. 8vo. 

Flora Domestica. London, 1823. 8vo. 

Flora Historica ; or the three Seasons of the British Parterre, 

&c. London, 1824. 2 vols. 8vo, 

Floral Emblems. London, 1825. 8vo. 

Sylvan Sketches. London, 1825. 8vo. 

William Cobbett (M.P. for Oldham). The American Gardener ; or 

a treatise on the situation and lajdng out of gardens, &c. London, 

1821. i2mo. 
The Woodlands ; or a Treatise . . . .describing the Trees. London, 

1825. 8vo. 

A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn. London, 1828. 8vo. 

The English Gardener ; or a Treatise on the situation and laying 

out of Kitchen Gardens, . . formation of Shrubberies and Flower 

Gardens, &c. London, 1829. 8vo. 
another edition, 1833. 

Rural Rides, Surrey, Kent, &c. 1830. New edition, edited by 

James Paul Cobbett. London, 1853. 8vo. 

Sir William Jackson Hooker. Flora Scotica. London, 1821. 8vo. 

Exotic Flora. Edinburgh, 1822-27. 4to. 

A Catalogue of Plants in the Royal Botanic Garden, Glasgow. 

Glasgow, 1825. 8vo. 

The British Flora. London, 1830. i2mo. 



374 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1821. Sir William Jackson Hooker {continued). Botanical Miscellany. 

London 1830-33. 3 vols. 8vo. 

Icones Plantarum. London, 1836. 8vo. 

Botanical Illustrations. London, 1837. 4to. 

_ Flora Borealis Americana. London, 1840. 2 vols. 4to. 

Genera Filicum. London, 1842. 8vo. 

Niger Flora. London, 1849. 8vo. 

Filices Exotica. 1857-59- 4to. 

Garden Ferns. 1861. 8vo. 

And many other botanical works. 

De Candolle. — Elements of the Philosophy of Plants, translated into 
EngUsh from the German translation of Theorie Elementaire de 
la Botanique by Augustin de Candolle, with additions by K. 
Sprengel. Edinburgh, 1821. 8vo. 

Outline of a General History of Gardening. London, 182 1. 8vo. * 

1822. Hortus Anglicanus ; or Modern English Gardening. London, 1822. 

2 vols. i2mo. * 

These two works, without the authors' names, are mentioned by Johnson. 

F. D. Levingston. A Practical Treatise on the Growth and Culture 
of the Gooseberry. London, 1822. i2mo. 

1823. Patrick Neill, m.a., f.l.s. Journal of a Horticultural Tour through 

some parts of Flanders, Holland, and the North of France, &c. 
Edinburgh, 1823. 8vo. 

Charles Harrison, f.h.s. A Treatise on the Culture and Manage- 
ment of Fruit Trees. London, 1823. 8vo. 
Horticultural Register (with Sir Joseph Paxton). 1831-36. 

DoNN. Catalogue of Plants. 1823. 
, Plan for cultivating Grapes in the Field. Liverpool, 1823. Svo. 
(Mentioned by Johnson without the author's name.) * 

1824. Thomas Forster. The Perennial Calendar and Companion to the 

Almanac, with Paragraphs headed " Flora." 1824. 8vo. 

Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural Phenomena for the use of . . . 

Gardeners and Husbandmen, &c. Containing " Flora Specta- 
bilis." London, 1827. Svo. 

Thomas Watkins. The art of promoting the growth of the Cucumber 
and Melon, in a series of directions for the best means to be 
adopted in bringing them to a complete state of perfection. 
London, 1824. Svo. 

Thomas Green. The Universal Herbal [2nd ed.]. 1824. 2 vols. 4to. 

William Dean. Hortus Croomensis. Worcester, 1824. Svo. 

The Greenhouse Companion. Anonymous. London, 1824. 

The second edition, containing a general course of Greenhouse 

and Conservatory practice throughout the year. London, 1825. 
Svo. 

Third edition. 1832. Svo, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 375 

1825. B. Maund. The Botanic Garden. (Published Monthly.) 1825 to 

1850. 4to., including 13 vols, and the Fruitist, 1,320 coloured 
plates, also Floral Register (2 parts) and Auctorium (2 parts). 

B. Maund and H. Henslow. The Botanist from 1839. Coloured 

Plates. 
Richard Morris. Essays on Landscape Gardening. London, 1825. 

4to. 

P. W. Watson. Dendrologia Britannica. London, 1825. 2 vols. 8vo. 

G. Bliss. The Fruit Grower's Instructor, &c. London, 1825. Svo. 

William Billington, m.c.h.s. A series of Facts. Hints, Observations 
and Experiments on the different modes adopted for raising 
Plantations of Oak, with experimental remarks upon Fruit Trees. 
London, 1825. Svo. 

T. F. Hunt. Half a dozen Hints on Picturesque Domestic Architec- 
ture. London, 1825. 4to. 
Designs for Parsonage Houses, &c. London, 1828. 4to. 

1826. Chandler and Buckingham. Camellia Britannica. 8 plates. London, 

1826. 4to. 

A Practical Essay on the culture of the Vine, and a Treatise on the 
Melon. By an experienced Gardener. Royston, 1826. Svo. 

A Catalogue of Fruit in the Horticultural Society at Chiswick. 1826. 

Flora Conspicua, a selection of the most ornamental . . plants for em- 
bellishing Flower Garden and Pleasure Ground, engraved . . by 
William Clark. London, 1826, Svo. 

William Withers, Jun. A Memoir on the Planting and Rearing of 

Forest Trees. Holt, 1826, Svo. 
second edition. Holt, 1827. Svo. 

A Letter to Sir Walter Scott, Bart., exposing certain funda- 
mental errors in his late Essay on the Planting of Waste Land, 
&c. Holt, 1828. Svo. 

The Acacia Tree. Robinia Pseudo-Acacia. London, 1842. 

1827. James Mitchell. Dendrologia ; or a Treatise of Forest Trees, &c. 

Keighley, 1827. Svo. 
Account of the different Flower Shows in England during 1826. Ashton- 

under-Lyne, 1827. i2mo. * 

Account of the different . Gooseberry Shows in England during 1S26. 

Manchester, 1827. lamo. * 

Catalogue of Fruits cultivated in the garden of the Horticultural 

Society of London, at Chiswick. London, 1S27. Svo. 
W. CoLLYNS. Ten minutes' advice to my neighbours on the use and 

abuse of Salt as a Manure. 1827. * 

Described by Johnson as having passed through four editions. 

1828. Sir Henry Steuart of Allanton, Bart., ll.d., f.o.s. The Planter's 

Guide, &c. Edinburgh, 182S. Svo. 

third edition, 1S4S. 

Sir James Sinclair, Bart. On the Culture and Use of Potatoes. 

Edinburgh, 1828. Svo. 



376 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 

1828. Charles Macintosh. The Practical Gardener and Modern Horti- 

culturalist. London, 1828. 2 vols. 8vo. 
Practical Instructions for the formation and culture of the Tree Rose. 
Anonymous. London, 1828. i2mo. * 

John Saunders. The Kitchen-Garden Directory, &c. London, 1828. 
i2mo. * 

Sir Walter Scott. On Ornamental Plantations and Landscape 
Gardening. (Quarterly Review.) 1828. 

James Graham Temple. The Scotch Forcing Gardener. Edinburgh, 
1828. 

1829. George William Johnson. A History of English Gardening. Chron- 

ological, biographical, literary, and critical. 1829. 8vo. 
This is the work to which frequent reference is made in the above list of books. 

The Gardener's Almanack. London, 1843. i2mo. 

The Principles of Practical Gardening. London, 1845. 8vo. 

The Potato Murrain and its Remedy. London, 1846. 8vo. 

A Dictionary of Modern Gardening. 1846. 8vo. 

The Cottage Gardener. Conducted by Johnson. 1849, etc. 4to. 

The Cottage Gardener's Dictionary. 1852. i2mo. 

This work went through many editions and was often republished with supplements. The 
second edition, 1857, 8vo., has the same title as that of 1852. Later on it was called Johnson's 
Gardeners' Dictionary. The latest edition was revised by C. H. Wright and D. Dewar. 
London, 1894. 8vo. 

Gardening for the Many. London [c. 1856]. Svo. 

By Johnson and others. 

British Ferns Popularly described and illustrated by engravings. 

London, Winchester [printed], 1857. Svo. 
The Garden Manual. By the Editor and Contributors of the 

" Cottage Gardener." London, 1857. 8vo. 

Science and Practice of Gardening. London, 1862. Svo. 

The Domestic Gardener's Manual, being an Introduction to Gardening 
on Philosophical Principles. By a Horticultural Chymist. 
1829. Svo. * 

Joshua Major. A Treatise on the Insects most prevalent on Fruit 
Trees, &c. London, 1829. Svo. 

Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening. London, 1852. 

4to. 

Mrs. Edward Roscoe (Liverpool). Floral illustrations of the Seasons 
. . . some of the most beautiful, Hardy and rare Herbaceous plants 
cultivated in the flower garden. Engraved by Havell jnr. 
London, 1829. Folio. 

another edition, 1831. 4to. 

George Don. Encyclopedia of Plants. London, 1829. Svo. 

A General System of Gardening and Botany, founded upon 

Miller's Gardener's Dictionary. London, 1S32-3S. 4to. 

A general History of Dichlamydeous plants .... London, 1831- 

38. 4 vols. 4to. 

1830. The Domestic Gardener's Manual .... to which is added A concise 

Naturalist's Kalendar, and English Botanist's Companion. By 
a Practical Horticulturist. London, 1830. Svo. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 377 

1830. E. A. Brooke. The Gardens of England. Coloured plates. Imp. 

folio. [N.D. ? 1830.] 
J, Mantell. a Chapter on Floriculture (in Baxter's Library of 
Agricultural and Horticultural Knowledge). 1830. 8vo. 

1831. Sir Joseph Paxton. The Horticultural Register (with Charles 

Harrison). 1831-36. 

The Magazine of Botany, (Begun in 1834.) 16 vols. 8vo. 

Practical Treatise on the culture of the Dahlia. 1838. i2mo. 

Pocket Botanical Dictionary. 1840. 

1833. Joseph Harrison. Floricultural Cabinet and Florist's Magazine. 
1833-51. 21 vols. 8vo. 

Magazine of Botany and Gardening: British and Foreign. Edited by 
J. Rennie and J. Burnett. 1833-35. 4*0. Coloured plates. 

James Maine. Illustrations of Vegetable Physiology appUed ... to 

the Garden. 1833. i2mo. 
The Villa and Cottage Florist's Directory. 1835. 

1835. John Dennis. The Landscape Gardener. Chelsea, 1835. 8vo. 

Clement Hoare. Practical Treatise on the cultivation of the Grape 
Vine on open walls. London, 1835. 8vo. 

T. WiLLATS. The Florist Cultivator, 1835. i2ino. 

1836. R. Marnock, The Floricultural Magazine. 6 vols. 8vo. 1836-41. 

Louisa Anne Twamley. The Romance of Nature, or the Flower 
Seasons illustrated, London, 1836. 8vo, 



ALPHABETICAL LIST 

OF 

AUTHORS OF WORKS ON GARDENING 

THE DATES REFER TO THE FIRST EDITION OF EACH 
AUTHOR'S EARLIEST WORK 



r-- A 




BUth, Walter . . , , 


1649 


Abercrombie, John 


1767 


Bobart, Jacob 


1648 


Acton, J. . . . . 


1809 


Bolton, James 


1785 


Adam, James . . . . 


1789 


Boothby, Sir B. (Hort. Soc.) . 


1812 


Addison, Joseph . 


1712 


Borde, Andrew 


1540 


Agricola, G. A. (also Anderson 




Boutcher, WiUiam . 


1775 


1777) 

Alton, William 


1717 
1789 


Bowles, Rev. W. L. 


1835 


Bradley, Richard . 


1706 


Alton, Wm. Townsend (1810) . 


1789 


Braddick, J. (Hort. Soc.) 


1812 


Alexis of Piedmont 


1558 


Braunschweig {see HoUybush] 


1561 


Amos, William 


1794 


Brocq, Rev. Philippe le . 


1786 


Anderson, James , 


1777 


Brooke, E. A. . 


1830 


Andrew, Lawrens . 


1527 


Brookes, Gilbert 


1779 


Andrews, Henry 


1797 


Brookshaw, George 


1812 


Archer, Clement 


1798 


Browne, Robert 


1786 


Ascham, Anthony . 


1550 


Browne, Sir Thomas 


1658 


Astley, Francis Duckenfield 


1797 


BruUes .... 


1790 


Attiret, F. {see Beaumont) 


1752 


Brunswick, Jerome of . 


1527 


Austen, Ralph 


1653 


Bryant, Charles 


1783 


B 




Buckingham . 


1826 




Bucknal, Thos. Skip Dyot 


1797 


Babington, C. C. (Trans. Lini 


1. 


Burnett, J. . . . 


1833 


Soc.) .... 


1791 


Bute, John, Earl of 


1785 


Bacon, Sir Francis 


1625 






Banks, Sir Joseph (Hort. Soc.) 


1812 


C 




Barnes, Thomas 


1758 


Candolle, a. de . 


. 1821 


Barrington, Hon. Daines 


1769 


Carey, Walter {see W. C.) 


1525 


Bauer, Francis 


1796 


Carlisle, A. (Hort. Soc.) . 


1812 


Beale, John . 


1653 


Carpenter, Joseph . 


. 1717 


Beaumont, John (Phil. Trans. 


1665 


Carter, Daniel 


• 1767 


Beaumont, Sir Harry 


1752 


Castel, Robert 


. 1728 


Bellingham {see Plat) 


1594 


Catesby, Mark 


• 1731 


Berger {see Stillingfleet) . 


I7S9 


Caux, or Caus, Isaac de . 


164s 


Bickham, George {see Stow) 


1746 


Chambers, Sir William . 


• 1763 


BiUingsby {see S. B.) 


1669 


Chandler (and Buckingham) 


1826 


Billington, William 


1825 


Churchy, G. {see Dubravius) 


1599 


Blagrave, Samuel . 


1669 


Clarke, G. . . . 


• 171S 


Blair, Patrick 


1720 


Clusius {see Lyte) . 


1578 


Blake, Stephen 


1664 


Cobbett, William , 


. 1821 


Blackwell, Elizabeth 


1737 


Colebrooke, H. T. (Trans. Lini 


1. 


Bliss. G. . . . 


. 1825 


Soc.) .... 


. 1791 



378 



LIST OF AUTHORS OF WORKS ON GARDENING 379 



Coles, William 

Collins, Samuel 

Collinson, Peter 

Collyns, W. . 

Commelin {see G. V. N.) . 

Commerell, Abbe de {see Lett 

som) . 
Cook, Moses . 
Copeland, W. {see W. C.) 
Cotton, Charles 
Cowell, John . 
Cowley, Abraham 
Coventry, Francis 
Cullum, Sir Dudley 
Culpepper, Nicolas 
Cunningham, James (Phil 

Trans.) 
Curtis, S. {see also J. Maddock 

1792) . 
Curtis, William 
Cushing, John 

D 

Dalton, John 

Darwin, Erasmus . 

Dean, William 

Dede, James . 

Dennis, John . 

Dethick {see Thomas Hill) 

Dicks, John . 

Dickson, James 

Dickson, R. W. . 

Digby, Sir K. . 

Dillenius, J. J. 

Dillwyn, L. W. (Trans. Linn 

Soc.) .... 
Dodoens, Rembrant {see Lyte 
Don, George . 
Don, James ... 
Donn .... 
Donovan, E. O. . 
Dove, John 
Drope, Francis 
Dubravius, Janus {see ti^ansla 

tion) .... 
Ducarel, Andrew Coltee . 
Ducket, Thomas 
Dunbar, John (Hort. Soc.) 



Edwards, John 
Edwards, Sydenham 
Ehret, Geo. Dionysius 
Ellis, John 
Ellis, Thomas 



1656 
1717 
1729 

1827 
1683 

1774 
1676 

1525 
1675 
1729 
1667 

1753 
1694 
1652 

1665 

1803 
1771 

1814 



I7S5 
1791 
1824 
1809 
183s 
1563 
1769 

1785 
1804 
1661 
1732 

1791 
1578 
1829 
1796 
1823 
1790 
1770 
1672 

1599 
1773 
1659 



177s 
1809 
1767 
1770 
1779 



Ellis, William 
Ellis, William 
Elsholt (or Elsholtz, J. S., see 

Sherley) 
Emmerton, Isaac . 
Ermenonville {see Malthus) 
Estienne, Charles {see Surflet) 
Evelyn, Charles 
Evelyn, John 
E. W. {see Passe, Wood) . 



Fairchild, Thomas {see also 

1730) .... 
Fairweather, J. (Hort. Soc.) 
Falconer, William . 
Farmer, J. . 
Felton, Samuel 
Field, Henry . 
Fitzherbert, Sir Anthony 
Fleetwood, Wm. (Bishop of Ely) 
Forster, John 
Forster, John Reinhold 
Forster, Thomas 
Forsyth, William . 
Frampton, John 
Freeman, Strickland 
Fuller (Hort. Soc.) 
Fulmer, Samuel 
Furber, Robert {see also 1732) 



Gandon, James 
Gardiner, Rev. James 
Gardiner, Richard 
Garton, James 
Gendre, Le {see Forster) 
Gentil, Fran9ois Le {see Lon 

don and Wise) . 
Gerard or Gerarde, John 
Gibson, John . 
Gilbert, Samuel 
Giles, Jacob . 
Giles, John 
Gilpin, Wm. . 
G. M. {see Markham) 
Goddard, Jonathan 
Goffe, Nicholas 
Goodriche, Sir H. (Hort. Soc. 
Googe, Barnaby 
Graefer, John 
Gray, Christopher 
Green, Thomas 
Greville, R. K. (Trans. Linn 

Soc.) .... 



1685 
1732 

1677 
1816 

1783 
1600 
1707 
1658 
1615 



1722 
1812 
1783 
1735 
1785 
1820 

1523 
1707 
1664 
1771 
1824 
1791 

1577 
1797 
1812 
1781 
1727 



1715 
1718 
1599 
1769 
1664 

1699 
1596 
1768 
1682 
1717 
1767 

1783 
1613 
1664 
1607 
1812 
1577 
1789 
1740 
1824 

1791 



38o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Grew, Nehemiah . 


1672 


Griffin, William . 


. 1806 


G. V. N. 


. 1683 


Gyllenborg (see Mills) 


. 1759 


H 
Haines, Richard . 


. 1684 


Hale .... 


• 1757 


Hales, Stephen 


. 1738 


Halfpenny, Wm. John . 


1750 


Hanbury, Rev. William . 


1758 


Harper, William 


1732 


Harrington, Sir John 


1653 


Harrison, Charles . 


1823 


Harrison, Joseph . 


1833 


Harte, Rev. Walter 


1764 


Hartlib, Samuel 


1645 


Harward, Simon 


1626 


Hawes, Stephen 


ISS4 


Hawkins, Sir C. (Hort. Soc.) 


1812 


Haworth, Adrian Hardy 


1794 


Hayes, Samuel 


1794 


Haynes, Thomas . 


1810 


Hayward, Joseph . 


1818 


Heely, Joseph 


1777 


Herbert, Hon. and Rev. Willian 


1 1821 


Heresbach, Conrad [see Googe 


1577 


Hill, Daniel (Hort. Soc.) . 


1812 


Hill, Sir John {see also Hale) 


1756 


Hill, or Hyll, Thomas (Didy- 




mus Mountain) . 


1563 


Hitt, Thomas {see also Meader) 


1757 


Hoare, Clement 


1835 


Hogg, Thomas 


1812 


Holinshed, Ralph . 


1586 


Hollybush, John {see also Tur- 




ner, 1538) . 


1561 


Home, Francis 


1757 


Home {see Kames, Lord) 


1776 


Hooker, William . 


1806 


Hooker, Sir Wm. Jackson 


1821 


Houghton, John . 


1682 


Houstoun, William 


1781 


How, William 


1650 


Howard, Hon. Charles (Phil 




Trans.) 


1665 


Humphrys, George 


1736 


Hughes, William . 


1665 


Hunt, T. F. . 


1825 


Hyll {see Hill) 

I 
Ibbetson, Mrs. Agnes . 


1563 


1809 


I. H 


1640 


Iliffe 


1670 


Irwin, Charles (Viscount) 


1767 



J 

Jackson, Maria E. 

Jacob, Giles . 

James, John . 

J. B. . 

J. B. {see Beale) 

J. E. {see Evelyn) . 

Jeeves, S. (Hort. Soc.) 

Jenkinson, James . 

J. M. {see Meader) . 

Johnson, Cuthbert W. 

Johnson, George W. 

Johnson, Thomas . 

Judd, Daniel (Hort. Soc.) 

Justice, James 

J. W. {see WorUdge) 

K 

Kames, H. Home (Lord) 
Keenes, M. (Hort. Soc.) 
Kennedy, John 
Kent, W. (Hort. Soc.) 
Knight, Charles 
Knight, Edward 
Knight, Joseph 
Knight, Richard Payne 
Knight, Thomas Andrew 
Krafift, J. C. . 
Kyle, Thomas 



Lambert, Aylmer Bourke 

Langford, T. . 

Langham, William 

Langley, Batty 

Lauder, Sir Thomas Dick {see 

Price) 

Lawrence, Anthony {see Beale) 
Lawrence, John 
Lawson, William . 
Le Blond {see James) 
Lee, James 

Lettsom, John Coakley . 
Levingston, F. D. . 
Liebault, John {see Surflet) 
Liger, Louis {see London and 

Wise) 
Lightoler, T. . 
Lille, I'Abbe J. de {see also 

Montolieu, 1800) 
Linacre, Thomas 
Lindegaard, Peter 
Lindley, George 
Lindley, John 



LIST OF AUTHORS OF WORKS ON GARDENING 381 



Linnaeus (see Forsyth, Jenkin' 

son, and Milne) 
Lister, Martin (Phil. Trans.) 
Lisle, Edward 

Lobel, or L'Obel, Matthias de 
Locke, John . 
Loddiges, Conrad . 
Loddiges, G. (Hort. Sec.) 
London, George 
Loudon, John Claudius . 
Loudon, Mrs. (see Loudon) 
Lovell, Robert 
Lunan, John . 
Lunwenhock, Anthony van 

(Phil. Trans.) 
Luttrell (Hort. Soc.) 
Lyon, Peter , 
Lyte, Henry . 

M 
Macdonald, Alex. 
Macer (see Linacre) 
Macintosh, Charles 
Maddock, James . 
Magnus, Albertus . 
Maher, J. (Hort. Soc.) 
Maine, James 
Major, Joshua 
Malthus 

Markham, Gervaise 
Marnock, R. . 
Marshall, Rev. Charles 
Marshall, William . 
Martyn, Thomas 
Mascall, Leonard . 
Mason, George 
Mason, W. Wallis . 
Mason, William 
Matthews, H. S. (Hort. Soc.) 
Maund, B. 
Maunsell, William . 
Mawe, Thos. {see Abercrombie) 
Maxwell, Robert . 
McPhail, James 
Meader, James 
Meager, Leonard . 
Mean, James . 
Merret, Christopher (Phil 

Trans.) 
Miller, John . 
Miller, Joseph 
Miller, Phihp . 
Mills, John 
Milne, Rev. Colin . 
Mitchell, James 



1665 
1757 
1570 
1766 
1777 
1812 
1699 
1803 
1803 
i6S9 
1814 

166s 
1812 
1813 
1578 



1807 
1530 
1828 
1792 

1574 
1812 

1833 
1829 

1783 
1613 
1836 
1796 
1785 
1763 
1572 
1768 
1806 

1757 
1812 
1825 

1794 
1767 

1757 
1794 
1771 
1670 
1817 

1665 
1777 
1722 
1724 

I7S9 
1770 
1827 



Mollet, Andre or Andrew 
Monardes, N. {see Frampton) 
Monceau, D. de {see Mills) 
Montolieu, Mrs. 
Morgan, W. (Hort. Soc.) 
Moriarty, Mrs. Henrietta M. 
Morison, Robert 
Morris, Richard 
Mortimer, John 
Morwyng, Peter 
Mountain, Didymus {see Hill) 
Murray, Lady Charlotte . 



1670 
1577 
I7S9 
1805 
1812 
1806 
1672 
1825 
1707 
1559 
1563 
1799 



N 

Neale, Adam . . . 1779 
Neill, Patrick . . . .1823 
Newton, James . . . 1752 
N. F. . . . 1604 and 1608 

N. F. D 1699 

Nichol, Walter . . . 1797 
Noehden, G. H. (Hort. Soc.) . 18 12 
North, Francis Dudley (Lord) 1669 
North, Richard . . .1759 
Nourse, Timothy . . . 1700 

O 
Owen, Rev. Thomas . . 1800 



Page, W. B 18 17 

Palladius {see Owen) . . 1800 

Papworth, John B. . .1818 

Parkinson, John . . . 1629 

Passe, Crispin de {see Wood) . 161 5 

Paxton, Sir Joseph . , 183 1 

Pechey. John . . . 1694 

Pena, Peter (see L'Obel), . 1570 

Peters, Matthew . . .1771 

Petiver, James . . . 171 3 

Phihps, Henry . . .1821 

Phillips, Leonard, jun. . . 18 14 

" Philocepos " {see Evelyn) . 1658 

Pigott, Richard . . .1820 

Plat, or Piatt, Sir Hugh . . 15 94 

Plattes, Gabriel . . . 1639 
Plaw, John .... 1796 

Plott, Robert (Phil. Trans.) . 1665 

Pluche {see Humphrys) . . 1736 

Pomet, Pierre . . . 1712 

Pontey, William . . .1800 

Pope, Alexander . . . 171 3 

Porta, J. B 1658 

Powell, Anthony . . . 1769 

Price, Sir Uvedale . . . 1794 



382 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Pullein, Samuel 
Pultney, Richard . 
Pursh, Frederick . 

Q 

QuiNTiNYE, John de la {see 
Evelyn) .... 

R 



1760 
1790 

1814 



1658 



Raley, William 




. 1782 


Ram, William 


. 1606 


Rapinus, or Rapin (see Evelyn 




or Gardiner) 


• 1673 


Rawley, William [see Bacon) 


• 1625 


Ray, John 


. 1660 


R. C 


1612 


Rea, John 


. 1665 


Reid, John 


. 1683 


Rennie, J. . . . 


• 1833 


Repton, Humphrey 


• 1794 


Richardson, Richard 


. 1669 


Rigaud [see " Stow ") 


• 1746 


Ritso, George . 


• 1763 


Robinson 


• 1798 


Rocque, Bartholomew . 


• 1753 


Roscoe, Mrs. Edward 


1829 


Rose, John 


. 1666 


Roxburgh, William 


• 1795 


Rudge, Edward 


. 1805 


Rutter, James 


1767 


"^ S 
Sabine, Joseph (Hort. Soc.) 


1812 


St. Pierre, Louis de 


1772 


Salisbury, Richard Anthony 


1791 


Salisbury, William 


1797 


Salmon, WiHiam . 


1710 


Salter, J. 




1816 


Saunders, John 




1828 


S. B. . 




1669 


Scot, Reynolde 




1574 


Scott, Sir Walter 




1828 


Semple {see Field) 




1820 


Sercy, C. de . 




1640 


Serle, J. 




1745 


Serres, Olivier de {see Goffe) . 


1607 


Seton, A. (Hort. Soc.) . 


1812 


Sharrock, Robert . 


1660 


Shaw, G. {see Freeman) . 


1797 


Shaw, James . . . . 


1794 


Shaw, William 


1807 


Sheldrake, Timothy 


1756 


Shenstone, William 


1764 


Sherard, Jacob 


. 


1732 



Sherbrook, A. (Hort. Soc.) 
Sherley, Thomas , 
Sibthorpe, John 
Simmons, Jedediah 
Simpson, Rev. John (Hort 

Soc.) . 
Simpson, William 
Sinclair, George 
Sinclair, Sir James 
Sinclair, Sir John 
S. J. . . 
Sloane, Sir Hans (Phil. Trans 
Smith 

Smith, Henry 
Smith, Sir James Edward 
Smith, Capt. John 
Snow, T. 
Sole, W. 
Sowerby, James 
Speechley, William 
Speed, Adam . 
Spence, Joseph {i.e. Sir H 

Beaumont) 
Spence, W. (Hort. Soc.) 
Standish, Arthur 
Steele, Richard 
Stent, Peter . 
Stephenson, David 
Steuart, Sir Henry, of AUanton 
Stevens, C. (Trans. Linn. Soc.) 
Stevenson, Rev. Henry 
Stillingfleet, Benj. 
Surflet, Richard 
Sweet, Robert 
Swinden, N, . 
Switzer, Stephen 



Taverner, John . 
Taylor, Adam 
Taylor, Joseph 
Temple, James Graham . 
Temple, John (Phil. Trans. 
Temple, Sir William 
Thompson, James . 
Thornton, Robert John . 
Tighe, Wm. 
Titford, J. W. 
Todd, George 
Tournefort 
Tower 

Townsend, Benj. 
Tradescant, John 
Trew, D. C. J. 
Trowell, Samuel 



LIST OF AUTHORS OF WORKS ON GARDENING 383 



Trusler, John . 


. 1780 


Turner, J. (Hort. Soc.) . 


. 1812 


Turner, William 


. 1538 


Turton, William 


. 1802 


Tusser, Thomas 


• 1557 


Twamley, Louisa Anne 


. 1836 


V 




Van Campen . 


. 1764 


Van Oosten . 


• 1703 


Varro (see Owen) . 


. 1800 


Venables, Rev. j. (Hort. 


Soc.) 1812 


Vispre, Francis Xavier 


. 1786 


W 




Wallis, N. . 


. U73 


Walpole, Horace . 


• 1770 


Ward, Rev. Samuel 


• 1775 


Ward, William 


• 1558 


Warre, J. (Hort. Soc.) 


. 1812 


Watkins, Thomas . 


. 1824 


Watson, P. W. 


. 1825 


Watson, Sir William 


• 1748 


Watson, William . 


. 1807 


Webb, W. 


• 1753 


Wedgewood, John (Hort 


Soc.) 18 12 


Weeks, E. 


. 1814 


Weston, Richard . 


. 1769 



Wheatley (or Whately), Thos. 


1770 


Wheeler, James 


^763 


Whitmil, Benjamin 


1730 


Willats, T 


1836 


Williams, J. (Hort. Soc.) 


1812 


Wilbraham, E. (Hort. Soc.) . 


1812 


Wildman, Thomas 


1768 


Wilkinson, T. (Hort. Soc). 


1812 


Wilmot, John Eardley . 


1815 


Wilson, Alexander 


1780 


Wilson, John . 


1744 


Wilson, Wilham . 


1777 


Winter, George 


1787 


Wise, Henry . 


1699 


Withering, William 


1776 


Withers, Wilham, jun. . 


1826 


Wolfe, C. J. . 


1715 


Wood, T. (see Passe) 


1615 


Woods, T. (Trans. Linn. Soc.) 


1791 


Woodville, W. 


. 1790 


Wooton, Sir Henry 


1624 


WorUdge, John 


1669 


W. C 


1525 


W. S 


. 1609 


Wrighte, W. . 


. 1767 


Wyer, Robert (see Macer) 


• 1530 



YoNGE, EzEKiEL (Phil. Trans.) 1665 



INDEX 



Abercrombie, John, 267 

Abingdon Abbey, 9, 16, 20, 27 

Accounts, churchwardens, 18 
„ Buckingham, 75 
„ Durham Monastery, 89 
„ Ely Place, Holborn, 25 
„ fruit supplied to Edward 

I-, 36 
„ fruit bought by John 

Tradescant, 152 
„ Hampton Court, 70-72, 79- 

81,83,91, 133,210 
„ Henry Best's farm, 196 
„ Henry Oxenden, 163 
„ Stonor, 123 
„ Le Strange, 90, 91, 93 

161, 163 
„ Lincoln's, Earl of, garden, 

Holborn, 34 
^. Norwich Priory, 10-17 
„ Royal Household, 70, 72, 
74,81,87, lOI 

Addison, Joseph, 227, 229, 241 

African plants, 276, 292, 311 

Aiton, William, 283 

Albury, 167 

Alleys, 74, 99 

Almoner, 15, 16, 19 

Almond, 3 

Aloe (Agave), 170, 240 

Alpine (or rock) flowers, 257, 301, 
308 

Amelia, Princess, 248 

American plants, 293, 294 

America, South, plants from, 276 

Andrewe, Laurens, 92 

Anemones, 152, 171, 181-4, 212 

Annuals, 297 

Antiphon, 214 

Apothecaries' garden, Chelsea, 176, 

215 

Apothecary, 148, 149, 150, 154, 215 



Apples, 14, 19, 24, 31, 34, 46, 84, 127- 

149, 161,270 
Appletun, 6 
Applej;erd, 6, 20 
Apuleius, 58 
Apricot, 84, 132 
Araucaria, 291 

Arbour, 3$, 50, 72, 74, 103, 114 
Arbutus, or arbutis, tree, 32? 
Architecture, 95 
Artichoke, 86, 123 
Artichoke garden, 321, 325 
Ascott, 305 

Asia Minor, plants from, 237, 277 
Ashley, Sir Anthony, 46 
Ashmole, Sir Elias (Mr.), 151 
Ashridge, 28 
Asparagus, 86, 240 
Auriculas, 141, 212, 285 
Austen, Ralph, 159 
Avenues, 178, 210, 232, 245, 258, 259, 

261 
Azalea, 273 



Bacon, his description of a garden, 

96, 99, loi, 103 
Badminton, 233 
Banana, 149, 313 
Banqueting-houses, loi, 102, 321, 

323 

Barberries, 97, 161, 329 

Bark-stoves, 291 

Barmstone, 203 

Barry, Sir C., 295, 296 

Baskets, iron and rustic, 293, 295 

Basynge, Roberto (gardener at Win- 
chester), 15 

Batailler, 186, 187 

Bathurst, Lord, 232, 246 

Batsford, 302, 308 

Batty Langley, 244, 246 

Baynarde's Castle, 40, 81 



384 



INDEX 



385 



Beale, John, 215 

Beans, 41, 86, 240 

Beans, kidney, 125 

Beaton, D., 285 

Beaulieu, 27, 137 

Beaulieu or Newhall, 81 

Beaumont, 189 

Becket, Thomas, 8, 38 

Bedford, 195, 207 

Bedding out, 292, 295, 296, 298, 302, 

315 

Beddington, 131, 20S 

Bees, 197 

" Beestes " at Hampton Court, 79 

Bel voir, 237, 304 

Berkeley House, 167 

Best, Henry, 196 

Bettenham, J., 103 

Bettisfield, 164, 172 

Bicester Abbey, 1 5 

Bilton, 163, 229 

Bisham Abbey, 78 

Black currants, 134 

Black Death, 42 

Blenheim, 210 

Blessed Thistle, 1 19 

Blith, Walter, 159 

Bobart, Jacob, 197 

Bog, artificial, 198 

Bog plants, 198, 257, 293 

Bollard, Nicholas, 62 

Borders, 106, 205, 293, 308 

Boreman, Sir W., 187 

Boscobel, 102 

Botanic Gardens, 144, 197 

Botanical Society of London, 287 

Botany, progress of, 198, 233, 283 

Boughton, 202, 232 

Bower, 32 

Bowie, J., 276 

Bowling green or alley, 194, 260 

Box, 107, 141 

Bradby, 201 

Bradley, Richard, 233 

Bramham, 194, 223 

Bretby, 190 

Bridgeman, 221, 229, 232 

Brithnodus, Abbot of Ely, 7 

Britons, i 

Brompton Nursery, 209 

Brooke, A. E., 295 

Brookshaw, on " Fruit," 270 

Brown, "Capability," 251-257, 264 

Brown, Agreement with Lord Scar- 
borough, 254 



Buchanan, John, 176 
Buckingham, E. Stafford, Duke of, -ji 
„ G. Villiers, Duke of, 258 

Buckingham Palace, 261 
Buckshorne, 124 
Bullaces, 48, 127 
BuUeyn, William, 131, 146 
Bulwick, 163 
Burbidge, F. W., 277 
Burghley, Lord, 109, 138 
Burghley House, 138, 253 
Burley-on-the-Hill, 194, 220, 258 
Bury St. Edmunds, 27 



Cabbage, 4, 45, 46, 120, 161 

Cambridge, 38, 195 

Camelia, 268 

Camomile, 64, 66, 99 

Campsea Ashe, 194 

Canal, 185, 202, 223, 226, 261 

Cannon Hall grape, 269 

Canons Ashby, 206, 218 

Canterbury, 8, 27 

Capel, Lord (Sir Henry), 165 

Cardinal College accounts, 90 

Cardoon, 123 

Carew, Lord (Sir Francis and Mr. 

131, 138, 208 
Carlisle, 31 
Carlton House, 248 
Carnations, 137, 174 
Carolina, plants from, 236 
Carson, A., 176 
Cascade, 202 
Cassiobury, 165, 180, 237 
Castle Ashby, 252 
Castle Bromwich, 1 26 
Castle Hill, 219 
Castle Howard, 211 
Castles, gardens around, 30 
Catalpa, 236 
Caterpillars, 197 
Catesby, Mark, 236 
Cawarden, Sir Thomas, 10 1 
Cecil, Sir Thomas, no 
Cedar, 168 

Cedars of Lebanon, 216, 217 
Chambers, Sir Wm., 246, 283 
Chaplets of flowers, 18, 54 
Charing, 32 

Charles II. and Le Notre, 178 
Charlton, 219 
Charpentidre, 219 



25 



386 



A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Chatsworth, 190, 201, 219 

Chaucer, 42-56 

Cheere, Henry, 219 

Cheere, Sir John, 219 

Chelsea Physic Garden, 176, 215 

Cherries, 2-4, 20, 47, 88, 131, 160 

Cherryjerd, 6, 20 

Chestnuts, 37 

Chestnut, horse, 167 

Chickpea, 125 

Child, Robert, 157 

Chilham Castle, 162, 194 

China, plants from, 309 

Chinese gardening, 246 

Chiswick, 271, 272 

Christina, Abbess, 7 

Christmas decorations, 18, 19 

Chrysanthemum, 286, 314 

Cibber, C. G., 219 

Cider, 19, 37, 129 

Cirencester, 59, 60, TJ 

Citrons, 47 

Clarendon, 32 

Clarmont, 248 

Cloysterjerd, 6 

Clusius (Charles de L'Ecluse), 146 

Cobham, 104 

Coles, 19, 134 

Colewort, 45, 120, 125 

Collectors and importers of the nine- 
teenth century, 271-277 

Collins, Samuel, 239 

Colonial fruit, 312 

Coloured earth, 107 

Compton, Bishop, 209 

Conservatories, 175, 294 

Conserves of fruit, 92 

Cook, or Cooke, Moses, 165, 179, 209, 
211 

Cook's garden, 116 

Cookery recipes, 53, 161 

Cooking of vegetables, 41-45, 161 

Corbie, monastery garden at, 5 

Cornel tree, 1 34 

Cornish gardens, 303 

Coronas sacerdotales, 1 8 

Costard apples, 37, 85 

Costermonger, 2,7 

Coventry bell flowers, 212 

Cranborne, 2 1 1 

Crocus, 89 

Cucumbers, 143, 239, 241 

Cunningham, A. and R., 275 

Currants, 85, 134, 327 

Gustos operum, 1 5 



Cusworth, 294 

Cut trees, 70, 105, 166, 202, 223, 227, 

305 
Cyclamen, 170 
Cypress, 99 

„ deciduous, 152 

D 

Daffodils, 152, 170, 286, 304 

Dahlia, introduction of, 279 

Daisy, 56, 212 

Damsons, 48, 127 

Darwin, Charles, 284 

Darwin, E., 282 

Dates, 47 

De Caux, 98, 112 

Delvaux, Laurent, 219 

Dennis, J., 261 

Desgots, Claude, 191 

Distilling, 92 

Dodoens, Rembert, 146 

Domesday Book, 22 

Don, George, 272 

Doody, 216 

Double flowers, 237 

Douglas, David, 272 

Down Hall, 222 

Draper, William, 10 

Drayton, 98, loi, no 

Drope, Francis, 160 

Dropmore, 272 

Drummond, T. and J., 275 

Durham Monastery, 89, 206 

Durham Vestry Book, 19 

Dutch influence, 189-203, 204, 214, 

227 
Dwarfs, 203 
Dymock, Cressy, 157 



Eadgyth, or Matilda, 7 
Edward I., fruit supplied to, 35 
Elizabethan garden, description of, 

113 
Ely, 7, 23-25 
Ely Place, 25 
Enclosure, 6, 96, 97 
English gardens abroad, 262 
Erbistock, 106 
Esher, 248 

Essex, Earl of (Lord Capel), 165, 180 
Essex, Geoffrey, Earl of, 27 
Essex House, 176 



INDEX 



387 



Eton College, 17 

Eugene, Prince, 218 

Euston, 190, 195, 226 

Evelyn, John, 165-170, 173, 177, 187, 

215 
Exton, 195 

F 

Fairchild, Thomas, 233-235, 284 

Falconer, Dr. H., 274 

Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster, 

77 
Fennel, 43, 64 
Fertilization, 233, 268, 284 
Field gardener to the Earl of Bedford, 

210 
Fiennes, Celia, 201, 206 
Finedon, 258 

Figs, 38, 47, 161, 163, 221-222 
Fishponds, jj 
Fitzherbert, 91 
Florists' varieties, 285 

„ „ names of, 287 
Flowers for arbours and bowers, 108 
„ at Church ceremonies, 16-19 
„ at weddings, etc., 142 
„ for decoration in houses, 141 
„ fifteenth century, lists of, 64- 

68 
,, in an Elizabethan garden, 

107 
„ introduction of, 107, 236- 

237, 267-271 
„ in the fourteenth century, 

51-56 
„ in a Tudor garden, 76 
„ wearing of, 141 
Forbes, John, 272, 275 
Forcing, 175, 237 

vegetables, 239, 240, 313 
Foreign grafts, 87 
Formal garden, 95 

,, gardens, modern, 305 
,, style, changing from, 204, 
226-7 
Forsyth, Wm., 270 
Forthrights, 95, 98 
Fortune, Robert, 273, 297 
Fountains, 51, no, 219, 318, 320, 
322, 330 
„ andWaterworks, 201, 232 

Foxglove, 212 
Frampton, John, 108 
French gardeners, 180, 181 
„ market gardening, 3 1 3 



French influence, 177-194 
Fritillarias, 171 

Fruit, 19, 35, 46, 83, 125, 161, 237, 
268, 312 
,, colonial, 312 
',, on Tusser's list, 84 
Fruit-trees trained on walls, 126 
Fuchsia, introduction of, 279 
Fulham, 125, 208 



Gallery, 72 

Garden, derivation of the word, 6, 97 

„ formal, 95 

house, 75, 321, 324, 327 

„ Italian style of, 295 

„ of manor-houses, 162 

„ Necham's description of, 60 

„ old-fashioned, 95 
paths, 50, 98-99 

„ garden pests, 196 

„ Roman, 2 

„ seats, 50 

,, the size of, 170 

„ tools, 91 

,, vegetable, near London, 239 

,, walls, 49, 96, 126 
Gardener, John or Ion, 44, 45, 49, 63 
Gardeners' Company, 117 
Gardeners, Society of, 234 
Gardener' s Chronicle, contributors to, 

289 
Gardeners, wages of, 90 
" Gardening, The Feate of," list of 

plantes in, 64 
Gardinae Sacristae, 16, 17 
Gardinarius or garden warder, 19, 21 
Gardiner, G., 276 
Garlands, 54 
Garlick, 43 
Garret, 148-149, 154 
Gates, 97, 163, 204, 219, 220, 259 
Geranium, 55, 296, 298 
Gerard or Gerarde, John, 96, 100, 
104, 109, 121, 122, 124, 128, 130 

133, 135, 146-149 

Gilbert, Samuel, 171 

Gilliflower, or clove pink, 5 5 

Glass frames, 260. See also Green- 
houses 

Glemham, 218 

Goodricke, Sir Henry, 2 1 8 

Goodyer, John, 150 

Gooseberry, 83, 134, 269 



25—2 



388 



A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Grafting, 48, 63, 91, 132 

,, tools for, 91 
Grapes, 21-28, 135 

introduction of new varieties 
of, 214, 268 
Grass banks, 74 
Grasgerd, 6 
Gray's Inn, 103 

Greenhouses, 137, 175, 208, 260 
Greenwich, 81, 178, 185-187 
Grillet, 190 
Grindal, Bishop, 209 
Grosseteste, Bishop, 59 
Grozel, 134 

Gubbins, in Hertfordshire, 229 
Gulston, Joseph, 180 
Gunnersbury, 248 

H 

Hackness, 78 

Hackney, Lord Brooke's garden at, 
176 
„ Sir Thomas Cooke's garden 

at, 208 
„ Lord Zouche's garden at, 

147 
Hackwood, 253 
Haddon, 203 
Haghmon, Abbey of, 1 5 
Hagley, 247, 250 
Ha-ha, 224, 244 
Hall Barn, 190, 224 
Hammersmith, greenhouse at, 208 
Hampstead, 100 
Hampton Court, 29, 70-72, 79, 80, 96, 

100, III, 133, 178, 181, 187, 189, 

210 
Hampton Court, vine at, 268 
Hanbury, Wm., 267 
Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 164, 171, 204 
Hardy plants, 299 
Harewood, 296 
Harris, Richard, 87 
Hartlib, Samuel, 157, 159 
Hartweg, T., 273 
Hatfield, iii, 136, 140, 152 
Hatton Grange, 78 
Hawkers, cries of, 241 
Hawthorn, 53 
Heaths, 292 
Hedges, 96, 99 
Henley, Walter de, 59 
Henricus Arboraii, 3 r 
Henry, Dr. A., 309 



Herbal, grete, 144 

literature, 58-63, 144-151 
Herbarium, herber (or arbour), 32 
Herbs in cookery, 43, 67 

in John Gardener's poem, 64 

for physic, 92 

in Sloane MS. 1 201, 66 
„ sweet-smelling, 99, 143 
Herbularis, 5 
Hereford, 23 
Herriott, Thomas, 120 
Hesketh, Thomas, 148 
Heslington, 106 
Hewell Grange, 257 
Hill, Thomas (Didymus Mountain), 

96, 99, loi, 105, 125, 155, 160 
Hindberry, or Hyndberry, 83 
Hips, 53, 71 
Hogg, T., 28s 

Holborn (Holbourne), 25, 34 
Holly, 166, 167, 258 
Holme Lacy, 158, 194 
Hooker, Sir Joseph, 283, 291 

Sir William, 272, 274, 283 
Hops, 131 

Horse-chestnut, 167 
Horse-radish, 86 
Horticultural colleges for women, 313 

„ Society, 270, 307 

Hortulanus, 9, 14, 19 
Hothouses, 175, 291 
Housewife's duties, 85, 92 
How, William, 198, 215 
Hoxton, Fairchild's garden at, 137, 

233 
Huguenots, 109, 131 
Hunstanton, 89, 161 
Hurley-on-Thames, 78 
Hutton John, 163 
Hybridising, 233, 237, 284 
Hyde Park, 209 



Infirmarian's garden, 15 

Ingestre, 222 

Ion, or John, Gardener, 44, 63 

Iris, 55 

Italian style of garden, 295 



Jacinthe, 184 

James I. and church decoration, 19 

„ and mulberry culture, 139 

„ of Scotland, 56 



INDEX 



389 



Japanese gardens, 308 
Jasmine, 108, 170 
Jerusalem artichokes, 122 
Jet d'eau, iii, 263 
Johnson, George Wm., 271 
Johnson, Thomas, 147, 149 172 
Jonquil, 184 

K 

Kale, or kole, plants, 45 

Kalm, 239 

Kenilworth, 98 

Kennington, 33 

Kensington, 209 

Kent, landscape gardener, 243, 248, 

Kew, Royal Gardens at, 246, 282, 301, 

306 
Kielmansegge, Count F., 249 
Kip, 221 
Kirby, 98 
Kirk, Sir J., 275 
Kitchen garden, 83, 116 
Knight, Richard Payne, 256, 264 
Knight, Thomas Andrew, 270 
Knots or knotted beds, 75, 106, 204 
Kymer, Gilbert, 62 



Laborde, 190 
Labyrinth, 32 
Lambeth, 208 
Landscape gardeners, 243 
Langhorne, Sir Wm., 219 
Langland, 41 
Larch, 218 
Laurel, 327 
Lavender, 65, 242, 328 
„ cotton, 107 
Lawrence, John, 233 
Lawson, Wm., 155 
Laws and acts, 89 
Leac tun, 6 

Lead statues and vases, no, 218 
Leasowes, 245, 250 
Leeds, 207, 285 
Leek, 4, 6, 43 
Legislation, 89 

Le Joye, garden at Winchester, 1 5 
Lelamour, John, 61 
Lemon, 138 
Le Notre, 177-194 
Lete, Master Nicholas, 148 
Lettuce, 4, 65, 66, 161 
Levens, 189, 194 
Levimus Leminius, 143 



Lilies, Scarborough and Guernsey, 

267-268 

Lily, ss> 174, 273 

Lime-trees, 189, 210 

Lincoln, Henry de Lacy, Earl of, 26, 

34 

Lincoln's Inn, 193 

Lionne, de, 186 

Littlecote, 84, in 

Lixtune, 23 

Llanthony Priory, 20 

Lobb, Thomas and William, 275 

L'Obel, or Lobel, 109, 147 

Loddiges in Hackney, 278, 280 

London, gardens in and near, ^$, 38, 
117,207,237 
„ petition of gardeners, 39 
„ George, 205, 209-212 
„ vegetable market, 39, 87 

Longleat, 210, 262, 301 

Lord, Joshua, 220 

Loseley, 75, no, 141 

Lotus tree, 215, 236 

Loudon, J. C., 288 

Lucre, gardener to the Queen Dow- 
ager, 209 

Lyte, Henry, 130, 146 

M 

Macer, 61, 144 

Mandrake, 120 

Maries, Charles, 274 

Marigold, 52 

Marlborough, John, Duke of, 218 

Maske of Flowers, 113 

Market gardens, 39, 88, 157, 239 

Markham, Gervase, 184 

Marshall, Wm., 149 

Marylebone, 102, 264 

Mason, George, 245, 247, 248 

William, 248 
Maudit's garden, 16 
Mawe, 267 

May, Adrian, 181, 182, 184, 188 
Maynard, Sir John, 248 
Maze, 105, 323 
Meager, Leonard, 212 
Medical MS., Stockholm, 61 
Medicinal herbs, 61, 119, 124 
Medlars, 38, 48, 84 
Melbourne, 211, 218 
Melons, 84, 123, 260, 328 
Melsa Abbey, 1 5 
Miller, Philip, 216, 232, 237 



390 



A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Mint, 44 

Mistletoe, i 

Mitford, 163 

Moles and molecatchers, 196 

Mollet, Andrew, 181, 184 

„ Charles, 181 

„ Gabriel, 181 

„ Jaques, 184 

„ Noel, 184 
Monasteries, suppression of, 76 
Monastery, gardens of officials in, 1 5 
Mon amy, recipe for making, 53 
Monardus, Nicholas, 108 
Moor Park, 213, 225 
More, Sir William, 1 10 
Morgan, Hugh, 215 
Morison, Robert, 199 
Mounds or mounts, 70, 10 1- 103 
Mountain Jennings, 112 
Mount Surrey, 78 
Much Hadham, 75 
Mulberries, 38, 139 
Mushrooms, 212 
Musk melons, 123 
Mustard, 124 
Myatt, 269 
Myrtle, 138 

N 

Narford, 262 
Nature, copying of, 244 

„ study, 314 
Nauewes, 125 
Naunton, Sir Robert, 118 
Neale, John Mason, 14 
Necham, A. (Abbot of Cirencester), 

20, 21, 59, 60 
Nectarine, 133, 161 
Nesfield, 295, 296 
Nether ton, 213 
Newcastle, 207 
New College, Oxford, 140 
New Holland plants, 292 
Newstead Abbey, 78 
Nonsuch, 82, III 
Norfolk's, Duke of, garden, 195 
Norwich Priory, 9-15. 
Nosegays, 141 -142 
Nottingham, Daniel, Earl of, 258 
Nursery gardens, improvement of, 

157-158 
Nuts, 36, 37, 85 

O 

The O of the gardener, 12, 14 
Oatlands, 81, 135 



Oddfellows, Order of, 142 

Old gardens, destruction of, 252 

Olive, 2, 234 

Onion, 4, 43 

Orange garden, 318 

Orangeries, 139, 175 

Oranges, 47, 109, 138, 175, 203 

Orchard or orceard, 6, 19,85,125,158 

Orchids, collectors of, 279, 281-282 
,, earliest importation of, 280 
„ first growers of, 280 

O Radix, 14 

Oriental style of gardening, 246, 309 

Ornithogalum, 212 

Orto Cersor, 20 

Ort^erd, 6 

Osborne, Dorothy, 214 
„ House, 296 

Oxford, 38, TT, 140 

,, Botanic Garden, 176, 197 



Painshill, 249, 268 

Palladius, 59, 62 

Paradise, 17 

Parkinson, John, 99, 10 1, 104, 107, 

120, 121, 123, 125, 127, 129, 131, 

134, 1 50-1 5 1 
Parks, J. D., 2^2 
Parliamentary Surveys, 159, 176, 

317-331 

Parsley, 4, 44 

Parterre, 204 

Pathenesburgh, 21 

Paul, Wm., 278 

Paxton, Sir Joseph, 295, 296 

Peaches, 38, 48, 85, 133, 162, 164 

Pears, 34-37, 47, 85, 130, 161, 270 

Pearmains, 37 

Peas, 41, 86, 125, 240 

Penny, Dr., 154 

Percival, Lord, letters to D. Dering, 
224-226, 230 

Pergola, 308 

Periodicals, 288-290, 312 

Periwinkle, 52 

Perrault, 179 

Pescodde, 40, 48 

Petition of gardeners, fourteenth cen- 
tury, 39 

Pheasant garden, 325, 328 

Phillips, Henry, 270 

Physic garden, 2 1 5 

Pineapple, 238, 269 



INDEX 



391 



Pinetum, 291 
Pippins, 127, 158, 3 18 
Plane, 28, 167 
Plants collectors of, 151 

„ in eighteenth century, 234- 
237, 267 

„ in Elizabethan garden, 107 

„ in fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries, 56, 64-68 

„ in nineteenth century, 272- 
282, 291 

„ in Tudor gardens, 76, 79 

„ mentioned by Evelyn, 166-169 

„ Saxon, 3 

„ sent from abroad, 211 
Piatt, Gabriel, 157, 160 
Piatt, Sir Hugh, 137, i 54 
Pleached Alley, 100 
Plums, 48, 131, 269 
Pomatum, 129 

Pomegranate, 47, 138, 1 77j 3i8 
Pomerium, 20 
Pond garden, 79 
Pontefract, 195 
Pools, 78, no 
Pope, Alexander, 227, 232 
Porkington Treatise, 63 
Portland, Wm. Bentinck, Earl of, 

190-193 
Pofcito, 120 

„ sweet, 121 
Potts, John, 272 
Powis Castle, 194, 253 
Presents of fruit or flowers, 93 
Price, Sir Uvedale, 263 
Priest, Dr., 146 
Primroses, 53, 65, 79 
Privet, 106 
Prizes, 175, 285 
Probus, Emperor, 2 
Propagation of plants, 2 1 2 
Public parks and gardens, 206, 209, 315 
Pultney, Richard, 175, 198 
Pumpkins, 124 
Pyracantha, 99, 100 

Q 

Quinces, or coynes, 31, 127, 129, 326 
Quintinye, Jean de la, 177, 211 
Quit rent, 18, 20, 55 

R 

Radish, 4, 65 

Railed flower-beds, 69, 79 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1 20 



Ramsey Abbey, 9, 17, 27 

Ranelagh, 208 

Ranunculus, 171, 173, 181-184 

Raspberry, 83, 127, 134, 326, 327 

Ray, John, 199 

Rea, John, 170, 173, 176 

Reeves, John, 271 

Reformation, 76 

Regent's Park, 264 

Repton, Humphrey, 257-261 

Rhododendron, 267, 274, 303 

Ribston, 28, 140, 218 

Richmond, 81, 229 

Robinson, Wm., 299, 300, 302 

Roche Abbey, 254-256 

Rockingham, 71, 106 

Rock garden, 257, 301, 308 

Roe, James, 272 

Roger le Herberur, 31 

Rolls, Ely, 25-6 

„ Norwich Priory, 9-15 
Rollers, stone, 164, 261, 327 
Roman gardens, 1-3 
Romsey Abbey, 7 
Rosamond, Fair, 32 
Rose, John, 176, 180, 209, 239 
Rosemary, 61, 76, 106, 142, 328, 329 
Rosery or roseria, 24 

.. 294 
Roses, 4, 53, 76, 107, 278, 294 
Rousham, 248 

Roxburgh, Dr. Wm., 274, 280 
Runcival peas, 86 
Rushes, strewing of, 19, 140, 143 



Sacristan, gardens of the, 16 

Saffron, 45, 89 

Saffron Walden, 32, 45, 195 

Saint Albans, H. Jermyn, Earl of, 186 

Armand, 4 

Barbe, Sir John, 204 

Etheldreda, 7 

Gall, 5 

Germain des Prds, 4 

James's Park, 178, 180, 181, 
185, 186, 188, 193, 261 

John, knights of, 28 

Leonard, Shoreditch, 234 

Martin Outwich, churchwarden 
accounts, 18 

Mary Hill, churchwarden ac- 
counts, 18 

Remy, 4 



392 



A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



Salad, 68, 124, 161 

Salisbury, Earl of, 109, 112, 136, 152 

„ R. A., 271 

Salle, Robert, 49, 62 
Sander, Messrs., 281, 282 
Sandwich's, Lord, house near Hun- 
; t^tingdon, 203 
Savory, 52,65,67 
Says or Sayes Court, Deptford, 166, 

187 
Saxon names of plants, 3 
Scarborough lily, 267 
Scheemakers, Peter, 219 
Scilly Isles, narcissus culture in, 304 
Scott, Sir Walter, 248, 263 
Scudamore, Lord, 158 
Sensitive plant, 174 
Seeds from abroad, 117, 174 
Serpentine, the, in Hyde Park, 246 
Shelters for delicate plants, 137, 175 
Shenstone, William, 245 
Sherard, William, 237 
Shows and floral exhibitions, 175, 285 
Shrubbery, 294 
Shrublands, 296, 299 
Skirret, 122 
Sloane, Sir Hans, 216 
Societies of florists, 285 
Sopwell, 28 

Southampton House,Bloomsbury,2o8 
„ warrant signed by, 188 

Southcote, Philip, 249 
Spalding, 27 
Speechley, William, 268 
Speed, Adolphus or Adam, 159 
Spring Gardens, 207 
Spring gardening, 304 
Statues, 218, 247 
Stinging-nettle, 2 
Stoake, 203 
Stoves, 175, 291 
Stow or Stowe, 230-232 
Strawberry, 48, 79, 83, 124, 127, 269 
Strawberry Hill, 249 
Street cries, 241 
Streams, 1 1 1 

Strewing rushes and flowers, 140 
Sturtivant, Simon (Hatfield), 112 
Sub-tropical gardening, 302 
Summerhouse, 103 
Sundials, 195, 219 
Survey, 73, 159, 176, 317 
Swiring, 20 

Switzer, Stephen, 179, 221, 226 
Syon orSion, 100, 140 



Tacitus, 2 

Taragon, 86 

Tarring, West, 38 

Templars, Knights, 28 

Temple, Sir Wm., 213 

Tenham (cherry orchards), 87, 88 

Terrace, 95, 98, 259, 322 

Theobalds, loi, 112, 140, 196, 328 

Thornbury, y^ 

Thurloe Park, 190 

Thyme, 66, 67, 99, 142 

Tijou, Jean, 219 

Tobacco, 108 

Topiary work, 70, 106, 202 

,, decay of, 227 
Tower of London, 81 
Town gardening, t,^, 38, 206, 234, 315 
Tradescant, John, 109, 131, 132, 151, 

270 
Transplanting, 210 
Treasurer's garden, 15 
Trinity Church, London, 27 
Tuggy, Ralph, 150 
Tulips, 108, 120, 171-174 
Tulip tree, 152, 168 
Turner, William, 83, 144 
Turnips, 125 

Tusser, Thomas, 83, 84, 145 
Twickenham, Pope's garden at, 229 



U 

University, 38, 195, 197 
Urns, 247 

V 

Vanbrugh, Sir John, 230 

Vandertmeulen, 202 

Van Nost, 219 

Van Vranen, 189 

Variegation, 237 

Vases and ornaments, 1 10, 218, 247 

Vegetables, culture of, 42, 85, 1 16, 239 

,, seeds from abroad, 117 

Veitch, 274, 277, 282 
Views and plans of gardens, 221 
Vine in Hampshire, 2 
Vines, 2, 21, 134, 214, 215, 268, 325 

„ forcing of, 237 
Vine-pruners, 21 
Vineyards, 2, 21-27, I34> 268, 325 

„ Roman, 2, 21 
Vinitor, 22 



INDEX 



393 



Violets, 52 

Viridi succo, verjuice, 24 

Vynour, Adam, 25 

W 

Walden, Bishop Roger de, 18 

Walks, 50, 99 

Waller, Edmond, 225 

Wall fruit, 126, 321 

Walls of stone or brick, 96, 126, 328 

Wallich, Dr. N., 274 

Waltham, 81 

Wanstead, 81, 211 

Warwick Castle, 194 

Weeding, 90 

Wardon pears, 20, 47, 85 

Waterworks, iii, 201 

Watton, 195 

Watts, John, 216 

Wentworth, Stainborough, 195 

Westminster, 15, 31, 33, TJ, 81 

,j Botanic garden at, 215 

Whitehall, 82, 102, iii, 178 
Whittall, E., 277 
Wilderness, 324 
Wild-gardening, 300 
William Rufus, 6 
Wilson, Mr. E. H., 310 
Wilton, 98, 112, 201 
Wimbledon, no, 176, 317-328 
Winchenley, 20 



Winchester, 15, 17, iii 

Window-boxes, 143, 176 

Windsor, 31, 33, 56, 74, 81, 135, 191 

Wine, 22, 26, 137, 268 

Wise, Henry, 209-211 

Wisley, 301, 307 

Wistaria, 271 

Woad, I 

Women gardeners, 3 1 3 

„ weeders, 90 
Woodford, 258 
Woodstock, 32, 81 
Wookey, 17 

Wort or Wortes, 6, 43, 45 
Wotton in Surrey, 167 
Wressel, 70 
Wrest, 190 
Wright, 251 

Wurt, or wurtes, or wyrt, 6, 45 
Wyn moneth, 21 
Wyrtun, 6 
Wyrtgerd, 6 



Yale, Elihu, 219 

Yews, 70, 75, 105, 142, 197 

York Place, Whitehall, 82 



ZoucHE, Lord, 109, 147 



BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD 



